Sins of the Father
by Manic Penguin
Summary: The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children. Euripides. Sam's father's affair ends up affecting the West Wing beyond what anyone could have foreseen.
1. Chapter 1

_**SINS OF THE FATHER**_

_RATED R_

_SAM/DONNA ROMANCE_

_SPOILERS FOR_ 'SOMEONE'S GOING TO EMERGENCY, SOMEONE'S GOING TO JAIL'

_This is the first installment of the HISTORY REPEATS series. Each installment will be posted in a multo-chapter form, probably three or four chapters apeice. History Repeats will also be posted on my website in what will probably be an easier format to follow. The link is in my profile._

_The idea for History Repeats, and, later thesub-section I've decided to title__**SotF**, came to me after watching SGTESGTJ on DVD. I know that the vast majority of people are rooting for Donna and Josh (from time to time I'm one of them) but the dynamic between Sam and Donna intrigued me so much that I started writing out a free-flowing web of ideas and before I knew what was happening I had a whole series planned out._

_This section moves fairly quickly but this isn't the main focus of the story. That will come in the next 'chapter' of **SotF**._

_**SotF** is set sometime after SGTESGTJ._

* * *

Even though she had been meaning to go to his office since she got the note when she first got in that morning Donna hadn't been able to get away until almost eight o'clock that night. Josh was attending a dinner meeting with several influential people who the White House was wooing for support on several upcoming projects, which meant that she got a relatively early night because dinner meetings usually lasted until the wee hours of the morning after which Donna's only responsibility would be to deal with the fallout if Josh was stupid enough to drink.

The note, that was delivered by Ginger right after Senior Staff headed for Leo's office, was short and in code, which, while it had seemed like a bright idea at the time, was very fourth grade now that they had actually put it into practise.

There was no real urgency to the topic in the note, so Donna had waited until she got the time, because she knew that it wasn't going to be a brief conversation, and then she went to Sam's office.

"What did you need to talk about?" Donna asked, holding up the note that had started off over thirteen hours of panic that she hid behind layers of professionalism.

Sam looked up from his laptop, clearly distracted, and not by whatever he was working on. "You free for dinner?" he asked.

"Josh is at some suck-up dinner thing, so I'm free for the whole night," Donna said. She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "I'm done with work for the night. That's better. Sounds less like I'm propositioning you," she decided.

"I'm good either way," Sam said with a smile as he started packing up his laptop and a few files he needed for the speech he was writing. "So how about we do take-out at my place. You bring whatever cuisine you want and I'll bring my whole new set of emotional baggage. What do you say?"

"Give me an hour and I'll be there," Donna nodded. She took a step forward and reached up, cupping his cheek in the palm of her hand. "Whatever it is, I know you'll get through this, Sam. You're strong, and you're not alone. Remember that," she said softly.

Sam smiled and ran his hand up and down Donna's arm a few times, his touch so gentle that it made Donna shiver. "I know I'll get through this, and anything else that comes my way. As long as you've got my back."

"Always," Donna said softly. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged Sam tightly for a moment before letting go and heading for the door. "One hour," she called over her shoulder as she headed back to her desk.

"I'll be there," Sam called back as he finished packing up his belongings and headed for the door.

A little under an hour later Donna knocked on Sam's door with the toe of her shoe, her hands full of bags of take-out. She'd changed into a pair of jeans and a knit tank top, forgoing a jacket in deference to the summer heat that was, thankfully, not yet humid. Sam opened the door wearing jeans and a Duke tee shirt that had seen better days. "Smells good. What is that?" he asked as he took half the bags from Donna.

"A little bit of everything. I couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted so there's Chinese, Moroccan, Italian, Mexican, and a couple of Cesar salads that I'm sure are more dressing than lettuce, but we can soak up the extra with the fresh pita bread my neighbour gave me as I was heading out to pick all this stuff up," Donna said.

"You realize there are only two of us eating all this, right? I mean, unless there's something you haven't told me…" he trailed off, glancing at her flat belly.

"I'm not pregnant, you idiot. That requires me having some kind of sex, which I haven't. In months," Donna said.

Sam nodded. "Good. Not that you haven't been having sex, 'cause I'm not entirely sure I'm allowed to have an opinion either way on that, but on the you not being pregnant thing? That's good."

"Are you implying I wouldn't be a good mother?" Donna asked, using her few months as a Drama Minor to really sell the emotion in her voice. She knew that that wasn't what Sam was saying but it was fun to see him flustered.

"No, I think you'll be a great mother. I just meant that if you were pregnant there's obviously a guy, and since I haven't heard anything about a guy, and if you were pregnant there would have to be a guy, which would lead me to assume that the guy either didn't last more than one night, in which case I'd have to track him down and make him change his life insurance policy so that everything goes to you and kill him, or that you've been seeing someone and he left you once he found out that you are pregnant, in which case I'd have to do the same thing as I would for the one night stand guy only I'd probably get the Secret Service involved to ensure maximum suffering on his part. Either way is disconcerting and would lead to many many years of jail time for me which is not really in keeping with my ten year plan. Plus I'd like to think that you'd tell me if you were pregnant, but, since you aren't, I'm left wondering how the hell we're going to eat all this food and still be able to move afterwards."

"We're not, but that's half the fun. Plus, leftovers," Donna said.

"Gotcha," Sam smiled.

They opened everything up and started filling their plates with their eclectic meal. Once they ran out of space they recovered everything and made themselves comfortable in the living room. "So… okay, first of all, you're okay, right? I mean, you're not sick or anything, are you?"

Sam shook his head. "I'm fine. But I got a call early this morning—early meaning about an hour after I got to bed which would have made it about three-thirty or so—from my father's attorney in California. The personal lawyer, not the corporate lawyer… or, legal team, really. Anyway, it was about three thirty here, which would make it half past twelve there, assuming I'm remembering time zones correctly—and I may not be because I got less than forty minutes of sleep last night and I spent most of my day going over a proposal that I swear is leftover from one of Leo's 'Cheese' days."

"What happened in California? Is your dad alright?" Donna pressed. She knew that Sam had been working on a strange proposal all day—Josh had mentioned something while they were working through lunch—but she really didn't care what happened at work because the way Sam was rambling on was really starting to scare her.

"My father and his mistress were in a car accident last night… or this morning… either way, it was bad. The car's a write off, they both broke limbs, she cracked two ribs, he's got a major concussion. They'll heal; they've got maids and can hire in-home nurses if they really need the extra help. That's not the big surprise that I got. The big surprise was that, not only did my father have a mistress stashed in Santa Monica, but he also had a daughter with her—with Theresa. That's the mistress' name, by the way. I'm not sure if I ever told you that. I'm not entirely sure I knew that myself before this morning. Anyway, I have a sister. She's twenty seven, and I'm pretty sure she's the reason that the affair lasted for as long as it has."

"Wow," Donna said, shocked not only by the information she had just been hit with, but also with how fast it had come out.

"Yeah, do that for a couple more hours and you'll be halfway to where I am right now," Sam said.

"This is… you have… how did… wow…"

Sam nodded. "Shayla—that's my… my sister's name—Shayla was driving and she got the worst of it. She's in and out of consciousness, her pelvis is cracked, multiple broken bones, and the doctors aren't ruling out brain damage."

"Oh my god. Sam, you have to go see your family."

"I've got a flight tomorrow evening."

Donna nodded, taking that information down for further notice. "How are they all doing, other than medically?" she asked.

"I dunno. When I talked to Petie he didn't know much and I haven't had a chance to call back today."

"Petie?" Donna smirked.

"My father's attorney."

Donna smirked. "Your father's attorney is named Petie?"

"Peter, really, but I've never called him that. We've known each other since we were diapers. What's wrong with 'Petie'?"

"Well, for one, it's the name of a third of the pet birds in the world," Donna said.

"The other two thirds being what? I mean, since you seem to be so up on the names given to domesticated birds," Sam said.

"One third 'Petie', one third 'Polly', and one third of names that actually take some originality on the part of the owner," Donna said.

Sam rolled his eyes. "That's quite the generalization," he said. "So… actually, there's one more thing that I need to tell you, and also that I'm going to need you to help me with because I'm completely out of my depth here."

"Hit me."

"Okay." Sam took a deep breath. "It turns out that there was one other person in the car. Who is genetically not entirely dissimilar to me."

Donna frowned. She knew that Sam's family wasn't large—his father, his mother, and apparently a half-sister—and he would have said something if his mother was in the car as well, though, considering how she had forbidden Mr. Seaborn to ever come anywhere near her ever again, Donna couldn't really see why she would be in a car with 'the other woman' and the child that had resulted from the affair. "Run that one by me one more time."

"Yeah, this is the part that I'm having trouble with, too. I always knew that there was the possibility that my father had another kid out there. Not just since the affair, but before that, I knew it was always a possibility because he was… well, a man-slut, for lack of a better term, in his college years," Sam said. Donna smiled weakly. "So I always sort of assumed that somewhere along the line a kid would show up, somewhere."

"O…kay…" Donna said slowly.

"See, the thing is... I want kids. You know that. That's why I was with Lisa for so long. I thought that if we could stay together long enough to have kids the rest of the whole marriage thing would come together," Sam said. Donna nodded. They had spent more than a few nights on the campaign trail talking about Patrick Trenton who was better known by the Senior Staff and their assistants under the moniker of 'Dr. Freeride' and Lisa Sherborne who would never be 'Sherborne Seaborn'. "And then I find out that I have a little sister, and I guess I always assumed that the kids that my dad had would be older than me, and that if I ever had a younger sibling I would be around to watch them grow up and, you know, be a part of all that."

"Of course."

"But, obviously, I wasn't, which sucks on so many levels I can't even count them all," Sam said, letting Donna know how upset he really was. Sam Seaborn was not the type of person to use the word 'sucks'. It just wasn't in his nature. "But there's nothing I can do about that. And there's not really anything I can do about the fact that I'm almost forty and I don't even have a girlfriend. But, and this is the thing that's really got me flummoxed, it turns out that Shayla, my little sister, has a daughter."

"You're an uncle," Donna smiled.

"I'm an uncle. She's eight, obviously not a planned pregnancy since Shayla would have been eighteen or nineteen when she had her, but that's not the point. The point is that my niece was in the car, too, and her mother can't take care of her while she's not even able to hold onto consciousness and, according to Shayla's written and legally binding instructions, if anything were to happen to her, like what's happened to her already, Meredith, my niece, is supposed to come and stay with me until such time that her mother is able to raise her again."

Donna was stunned silent.

"Yeah, pretty much my reaction. After I got past the 'why can't I breathe?' thing I realized that there's this little girl whose mother is unable to stay conscious long enough to give her a hug and as much as I'm wondering why the hell Shayla decided to go with me instead of, I don't know, someone she actually knows for care of her daughter, but it's family and I never got to do all the big brother things I thought I'd be able to do if I ever got the chance."

"You would have been a great big brother. I doubt any guy would mess with your sister after meeting you," Donna said with a soft smile. Sam smiled as well, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "So… how is this going to work? You taking care of… Meredith, was it?" Sam nodded. "That's a pretty name."

"It was my paternal grandmother's name," Sam said with a soft smile. "And I don't know how it's going to work. I mean, I have a general overview, but when it comes to the details I'm completely lost. I know that I have to fly out and pick her up. She's being released from the hospital the day after tomorrow. It's the middle of the school year so I'll have to do something about schooling… maybe a private tutor since I don't have a stable timetable for how long she'll be here. I have to set up a bedroom for her, which means I have to clear out my office and do something with all that stuff. And I'm sure there's more, but I'm still so thrown by everything that I can't think beyond education and a place to sleep."

Donna nodded. "Okay. This is doable. Start packing up your office tonight—do you have boxes you can use or should we make a run for them now before it gets too late?"

"I'm gonna need boxes," Sam said after a minute.

"Okay. You go start taking things off the walls, unhooking your computer, all that stuff, and I'll go get some boxes. You can store the stuff you don't use and anything you do use you can set up somewhere else in here or bring to work. While I'm out I want you to call the guys and beg until they get their asses over here. If any of them give you any trouble remind them that I know everything, and that I have a lot of pull with the other assistants. Got it?" Donna said. Sam nodded. "Okay. Now, you should also call Leo; let him know that you're going to be taking some time off after you get back."

"I don't need to take time off," Sam said.

"Until you get some kind of schooling situation sorted out for Meredith you're gonna have to because, as understanding as I'm sure everyone would be, I seriously doubt that an eight year old wants to spend the day at the White House," Donna said.

Sam hung his head. "Toby's gonna kill me."

"If this was your kid that suddenly showed up after eight years, maybe, but this is your niece and you can write from home, send things in by e-mail or courier; make periodic stops at the office to keep things going. Toby will understand, though. He'll yell, and he'll probably resent the hell out of you, but a lot of that is because of everything with him and Congressman Wyatt."

"What everything?" Sam frowned.

Donna smirked. "See. I know everything. Now go get started on sorting out that office. I'll be back in half an hour, okay?"

Sam nodded and stood up. They hadn't eaten much, and he didn't want all the food to go to waste, so he put all the take-out in the fridge before heading to his office. It was a mess. He rarely worked from home, and if he did he did it in the living room because he had always felt that working from home wasn't really working from home if you did it at a desk. So the office had become a catch-all for everything and anything that he didn't want, need, use, or have room for anywhere else.

By the time Donna returned CJ was there and Toby was pulling up in a cab. "Bringing my ex-wife into this charade was low, Donna," Toby said as they walked up the steps to Sam's townhouse.

"I simply told Sam to tell you that I know everything. If he chose to give an example, which he didn't even have the full story on, it wasn't my doing," Donna said innocently.

"I loathe you," Toby growled.

"You love me and you know it," Donna shot back before pushing the door open. "Thanks for helping me bring the boxes in, by the way," she added sarcastically.

Toby shot her a glare but reached out and took the majority of the flattened cardboard boxes from the stack Donna was carrying. "How the hell did you find out anything about Andie and me?"

"The night after the first State of the Union I found you sobbing in your office after everyone else had gone home. You were drunk, I asked what was wrong… and you told me," Donna said. "I didn't tell Sam, I swear. I didn't tell anyone. It's not my thing. And I'm not going to tell you that I'm here if you ever need to talk, 'cause you and I both know that that's never gonna happen, but I need you to know that I never told anyone and, unless you say otherwise, I'm not going to say a word. All Sam knows is that I know something that happened between you and the Congressman."

"It's not a big secret, Donna. We fought the fertility battle and lost. It was too much of a strain. We divorced. The reasons are a matter of public record. Just don't go blackmailing me because I apparently spilled my life story to you while drunk and coming down off an adrenaline high."

Donna nodded.

"But… thank you… for not telling anyone," Toby said.

Donna nodded again and that was the last thing they said before they stumbled—Toby literally, Donna only figuratively—upon CJ who was sprawled out on the living room rug sorting through stacks of books.

"Damnit, Toby!" CJ cried out, curling up to protect her ribs from Toby's bumbling feet.

"What happened?" Sam asked, poking his head out of the main floor bedroom that he had turned into an office and would be returning to its rightful state in short order.

"Toby was channelling you for a minute there, Sammy-boy, and my ribs were the casualty," CJ said as she gracefully rose from her spot on the floor and moved to a safer position on the couch. "You have too many damned books, by the way. What do you need four copies of every book for?"

"I don't have _four_ copies of all of them. Two copies, max. One translation and one in the original text," Sam said, coming out to see what CJ had done with the books she had grabbed from the office upon her arrival.

Donna glanced at the titles that lay at her feet. True classic authors like Tolstoy, Twain, Dostoevsky, Dickens, all the Brontë sisters, Shakespeare, Melville, Gogol, and Homer lay among law texts, poli-sci books, stacks of novels by more contemporary authors, and tomes on world history. And, as CJ had said, there were multiple copies of several of many of the books.

"You're a geek, Seaborn," CJ declared before standing up and heading for the office to get another load of books to box up until Sam could figure out what he was going to do with everything.

"Since when do you know Russian?" Toby asked.

"When I was going through school it was the language to know if you were going into politics. No one anticipated having to deal with genuine enemies anywhere other than Russia," Sam said offhandedly as he headed back toward the office. "There's food in the fridge if anyone's hungry," he called before disappearing around the corner.

Josh showed up twenty minutes later and he, Sam, and Toby started working on the filing cabinets that Sam kept in the office—mostly old speeches and copies of bills that they were keeping in a drawer until a more opportune moment—while Donna and CJ dealt with the desk that the boys had lugged out into the living room to give everyone more space to work.

"What do you know about this whole situation?" CJ asked as she moved items from the desk drawers into boxes since it had been decided that Sam would be using the storage space under Josh's brownstone for a while.

"Probably as much as Sam does," Donna replied. "I'm not too sure why his sister wouldn't leave Meredith with Mr. Seaborn, though. You'd think she would want her daughter to stay with someone that the girl has, you know, met."

"There's probably a reason that Shayla didn't want to share in a legal document," CJ said logically. "Sam knows that this is going to be a thing, right?" she asked, always looking out for the good of the President and his staff.

Donna shrugged. "I think the thought has occurred to him, but I doubt he's focused on it too hard. All this… it's hit him hard, and all at once. His dad's hurt, he's got a sister that he's never met, and not only is he an uncle but he's also going to be responsible for an eight year old girl for an unknown amount of time. Once that actually settles in his mind and he's done processing it all he'll start to worry about how it'll look for the administration. Until then you're probably going to have to take the reigns."

"As usual," CJ said with a sigh. She and Donna shared a smile before going back to work.

At one AM they finally called it a night. Sam was already snoring softly on the couch when the other four filed out. Toby set the alarm, knowing it from the many nights he had woken Sam about a problem with a speech, and they all headed off in their own directions with halfhearted goodnights called over their shoulders. Toby was anticipating being without his deputy for at least the rest of the week—as much as he complained about Sam everyone knew that Toby would get bogged under without him to take care of things. CJ was worried about the press and how someone might spin the White House's playboy living with a little girl. Josh was worried about Mr. Seaborn who had been a good friend ever since Sam had introduced them so many years ago, and he was worried about Sam who was clearly not dealing with everything as well as he tried to make them believe. And Donna was thinking about the things she was going to do the next day and how she was going to be able to fit the new additions into her already busy schedule.

* * *

_This is the first West Wing fiction that I have posted thus far. I know I've got some tweaking to do before I get the characters just right, but, please, stay with me._

_M_


	2. Chapter 2

**_SINS OF THE FATHER_**

_RATED R_

_FIRST PART OF THE 'HISTORY REPEATS' SERIES_

_SAM/DONNA ROMANCE_

_SPOILERS FOR _'SOMEONE'S GOING TO EMERGENCY, SOMEONE'S GOING TO JAIL'

* * *

By the time Senior Staff rolled around the next morning Sam felt like he was going insane and Donna had managed to organize everything on ten colour-coded note cards. The senior level assistants sent their boss' off to Leo's office and went about doing the work that could only be done without having to worry about getting interrupted by a buzz on the intercom—or Josh bellowing Donna's name.

Halfway throughthe daily rush that the administrative staff laughingly called 'free time'—they worked just as hard in those forty minutes as they did the rest of the day only the tasks that they undertook were rarely if ever recognized—Cathy came over to Donna's desk. "Hey, Cathy," Donna said.

"Hey, Donna. You look tired. Josh keep you here 'til dawn again?"

"Actually, no. I got out of here at the almost respectable hour of eight o'clock last night. I was just up late working on something," Donna said. She had stayed awake until the early hours of the morning working on a plan of attack to help Sam get through his current battle. If there was one thing that she had learned since starting work at the White House it was how to formulate an effective plan.

"For Sam," Cathy stated. Donna nodded. "What's going on with him? I know you're closer to the Senior Staff than the rest of us. Something's up and I hate not knowing what it is. Yesterday he came in and told me to clear his schedule for the next few days. Today he came in muttering something about IKEA. CJ gave him a Raggedy Ann doll and Toby didn't explode when Ginger told him that Sam would be out of town for a few days even though they have four speeches to write by the end of the week. What the hell is going on?"

Donna took a deep breath. "His family was in an accident and he's got to go and deal with some things in California," she said. It was up to Sam to go into further detail.

"Are they okay?" Cathy asked.

"Yeah. Well, no, they're not, but everyone's alive. Sam just has some stuff he needs to take care of. You should talk to him about it. I don't know how much he wants to tell people," Donna said weakly.

Cathy nodded. She knew Donna wouldn't betray a confidence. "I'll do that. Now, do you have the thing for 820?"

* * *

In Senior Staff things were going well. It seemed it would be a slow day, if you were to go by the amount of actual work that concerned the running of the country that was being discussed. They went over Toby and Sam's speech on 820 which was further legislation for their fight for gun control, Josh's latest battle with Congress, and the fact that the delegation from Australia that was supposed to arrive later in the day had to cancel because of a death in the family of the Ambassador. Once those topics were out of the way Leo asked if there was anything else, his eyes fixed on Sam.

"I already told them, Leo," Sam said without emotion. "They were all over at my place trying to turn my office into a bedroom for Meredith. Our lack of success was astounding."

"It always is," Leo said. "Once you have a plan let us know and we'll accommodate you however we can."

"Thank you," Sam said softly. He'd already spoken to Leo and the President and they had both offered their support, but at the time he was still in shock and the words hadn't penetrated properly, so hearing them again was very comforting. "I'm probably going to need a lot of help," he admitted.

Josh scoffed. "I doubt it. Donna's taken over, Sam. And trust me when I tell you not to fight her. She'll trample all over you and then make you pay for the damage to her shoes." CJ smacked Josh with her thick briefing folder. Sam cringed in sympathy—he'd been the target of the anger of the Sisterhood more than once, though he never went out of his way to piss them off the way Josh seemed to. "Need a ride to the airport?" Josh asked Sam. "You can leave your car here. It'll be safer and cheaper than parking at the airport."

"Thanks," Sam said. He honestly hadn't thought about details like that. Actually, he hadn't thought about details, period. "Remind me to let Secret Service know before I leave."

They talked for a few more minutes about who would take over for some of Sam's responsibilities while he was away and then about how much work he would be able to do from home, and then the meeting broke up. CJ headed off for her morning briefing and Toby went to his office to go over the speech Sam had handed him the day before.

"What time's your flight?" Josh asked Sam as they wandered toward the Communications bullpen.

"I honestly can't remember at the moment. I'll send everything over to Donna," Sam said. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. "This is insane. I've never even met my sister yet she's willing to entrust her daughter to me. I don't even trust myself with a houseplant!"

"Remind me of that the next time I have to go out of town," Josh teased. They had acted as house sitters for each other numerous times since they both relocated to DC. "I should go before Donna starts exercising her secret Wisconsin Ninja skills to track me down."

Sam smiled and waved his friend off as he headed to his own office. He wasn't sure if it was the idea of Donna dressed in black Ninja gear sneaking through the West Wing like an animal hunting it's prey or simply the though of Donna that made him smile, but he decided not to put too much thought into it. It was the thinking that got him into trouble.

"I talked to Donna," a voice from behind him announced. Sam turned and saw Cathy standing with a cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate cake balanced on top of a small stack of files. "She told me your family was in an accident. Is there anything I can do?" Sam hesitated for a moment before motioning for Cathy to follow him into his office. She was like a little sister to him, despite the fact that he was terrified of her, and he thought that maybe she would have some insight into his evolving family situation that Donna, CJ, Toby, Josh, Leo, and the President hadn't been able to convey.

Cathy set her precarious pile down on the edge of Sam's cluttered desk as Sam closed the door. He knew that it was only a matter of time before everyone found out but he wanted to delay the inevitable, preferably until he was on the other side of the continent.

* * *

"Donna, I need the file for the thing," Josh shouted from his office. He was running late for a meeting on the Hill that promised to take all day, something that Donna felt was very fortuitous since it gave her a lot of time to work on non-work things without leaving her desk. Or, more accurately, without leaving Josh's desk because she loved working in his office when he was on the Hill. It was quieter, had more privacy than her desk in the bullpen, and something about Josh's office made her feel a little more powerful than usual.

"It's in your bag," Donna called back, her hand firmly clamped over the mouthpiece on the phone. She mentally kicked herself for not waiting until Josh was safely on his way before beginning her confirmation calls, but she wanted to make sure that this call got through on time. "Sorry about that," she said to the woman on the other end of the line. "So everything's set for delivery tonight?" she asked. "Good. Yes, that's the correct address. Yes, there are stairs. Five, in total. No, there are no planters or anything on the stairs," Donna said, answering the same question—'are there any planters or statues or anything that my guys should worry about?'—for the fourth time. "Alright. I'll see your guys at seven," she said before hanging up.

"What's at seven?" Josh asked, frowning.

Donna jumped. "How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?"

"You _never_ tell me not to do that. You _always_ tell me not to shout. I didn't shout. Jeeze, you're tough to please," Josh groused. He held the grumpy pose for a moment before going back to his original question. "What's at seven?"

"Nothing you need to worry about. You're going to drive Sam to the airport, right?"

"Yes, and before you pull out that sheet, I know that his flight is at six thirty and that I have to be back from the Hill by four so that you have time to write down the names of all the people you have to send apologies to," Josh said mechanically. He'd heard her instructions five times since she received Sam's flight information an hour earlier.

Even though she wasn't entirely convinced that Josh would get back to the office by four Donna decided to let him leave anyway. She would call him at quarter to and if he wasn't on his way back she would make sure that he was able to convince whoever he was meeting with that there was something time sensitive that he needed to get done back at the office. "Do good," Donna said as Josh shouldered his backpack.

"I always do good," Josh replied.

"Do really good, then. This bill is really important. God knows why you're the one trying to get it pushed through, though. This is going to require some major finesse and you, my friend, are sorely lacking in that particular trait," Donna said, baiting Josh. The truth was that they needed him to be Bartlet's Bulldog at the meeting he was going to and she was under orders from Leo to make sure that Josh went in there with his ears already blowing steam.

Josh glared at Donna. "I have finesse coming out of every known orifice."

"As proved by that eloquent statement that everyone in the West Wing could hear," CJ commented on her way through Operations.

Cowed slightly, Josh softened his expression as he looked back to Donna. "You're sure that this seven o'clock thing isn't a thing?" Josh asked.

Donna nodded, hoping she wasn't headed for another lecture about her taste in men because, as vague as she was being, Donna was sure that Josh would assume that she was going on a date. Which couldn't be further from the truth. "I'm absolutely positive. The seven o'clock thing is a _me_ thing. Go kick some ass and remember that I mean that purely figuratively."

"One time, Donnatella! It only happened one time!" Josh protested.

"You threw a file at Congressman Miller and he ended up with a black eye and a split lip. You're lucky he didn't charge you with assault," Donna shot back.

She didn't add that ever since the 'incident' Congressman Miller had acquiesced to any and all of the White House's requests, formal or informal, simply because he was terrified of being forced to meet with Josh Lyman who had gotten so angry at being informed that his pet project was being killed by Miller's vote that he had thrown a three-inch thick file at the Freshman that had resulted in him looking like he had gone a couple of rounds with a prize fighter. Once Donna had realized the patter emerging she had gone to Leo and they had agreed that telling Josh wouldn't be wise because he would probably get it in his head to attack everyone in Congress when he couldn't get his way.

"You're going to be late," Donna said after consulting her watch, which was set to the world clocks in the Communications Bullpen, which were set by the Navy. She'd set Josh's watch from the clocks as well, but somehow he always ended up losing fifteen minutes.

"I'm going," Josh said as he started walking off.

"Back by four!" Donna called out, half because she knew he needed reminding and half because it was fun seeing how far she could go before his head exploded.

A violent and pained growl was the only response Donna received.

* * *

CJ stopped at Toby's door after noticing that Sam's was shut, which usually meant that he was in deep concentration mode. "He's going to have to make a statement," the Press Secretary said without preamble.

"Agreed," Toby replied. He had his pink juggling ball in his hand and his computer had long since gone to screensaver. CJ knew that he was about an hour away from pulling out the bottle of scotch he kept in his desk. If she didn't think he'd try to kill her she probably would have pointed out that the scotch-drinking writer was quite the cliché, something that Toby was ardently against. "I'll scratch something out tonight. Leo can look it over before Sam gets back. We say anything before he gets the kid there's going to be nothing but reporters on both sides of the country."

"Okay, so we wait," CJ nodded. She had wanted to wait anyway, but she knew it would be received better if it came from Toby. "Do you want to take this to Leo or should I?"

Toby nodded his head toward her. "You take it to him. You've got my full support, though I doubt you'll need it," he said. "Now go away," he added gruffly. CJ smiled and left the office to get her briefing over with.

"Good afternoon," CJ said as she took her place behind the podium.

Immediately reporters started calling out for her attention. Since she didn't have any statements to read that were any different from her earlier briefing she didn't bother trying to talk over them.

"Katie, then Ian, then Danny."

The other reporters stopped calling out for her as Katie posed her question. "I'm hearing things about 820 and how the ball is being passed to Josh Lyman when it's been Sam Seaborn's pet project from its inception. Why the shift?"

CJ fought hard to roll her eyes. "The ball has not been passed, nor has there been a shift of any kind. Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn are two of the many people who are working around the clock to get 820 pushed through. Ian?"

"Congressman Winters has been incredibly vocal on the subject of hiring non-Democrats," Ian said. CJ bit her tongue. Congressman Winters had been a pain in the ass of the Administration on every imaginable topic since he won his seat. Very few people believed he was actually a Democrat, and Josh was positive he was an evil Republican plant in the DNP but had yet to find a shred of evidence other than the man's behaviour. "Does the White House have a comment on the Congressman's opinion?"

"Congressman Winters was referring to the President's decision to hire Republican Ainsley Hayes as Associate White House Council, and, yes, I have a comment on the subject, direct from President Bartlet," CJ said. She had found a moment to talk to the President after Senior Staff and she had gotten the language okayed by Toby shortly after. "Ainsley Hayes impressed the President with how she handled herself on Capitol Beat against Deputy Communications Director, Sam Seaborn. She is a capable and dedicated attorney, who, yes, is a conservative Republican, but she serves at the pleasure of the President and she does it well. This Administration has no regrets regarding the decision to hire Miss Hayes, nor can anyone find a reason that the Congressman dislikes her so vehemently." She paused. "Danny?"

"This actually ties back to Katie's question about 820," Danny said, his eyes gleaming the way they did when he knew something that CJ didn't want him to know. "I have it on good authority that the ball has, in fact, been passed from Seaborn to Lyman and that this was done because Sam Seaborn is preparing to fly out to California to launch his bid for a seat in Congress from his home state."

"There is absolutely no truth to that rumour, Danny, and I would think that you of all people would check your facts before coming in here with a question like that," CJ said. "That's all for this afternoon. See you all for your evening briefing where I'm hoping there will be more than water-cooler chatter to deal with."

* * *

Sam left his office and dropped his paper on Public Education Reform on Ginger's desk so she could get it to Toby. "He's yelling at her now. You're next," Ginger warned.

"Thanks for the heads up," Sam said before hurrying out of Communications. Josh was on the Hill and he was pretty sure that Donna would let him hide out in Josh's office until Toby had gotten some of his anger out.

"Hey, congratulations, Congressman Seaborn," Donna teased as he met up with her by the photo copier.

"You saw it, huh?" Sam asked.

"Well, there haven't been many rumours about you flying around the Capitol for a while so I guess your time has come. And it's not like it's a totally off the wall suggestion. You've always planned on running after we're out of here, haven't you?" Donna said.

Shrugging, Sam closed the door to Josh's office and pulled the blinds shut. "It's not something I've ruled out," he admitted before sliding down the wall until he hit the floor. "Actually, I might have mentioned it… that I was planning on doing it for sure… last week when we all went out for drinks. Danny was there…"

"And he found out about your flight to LA…" Donna said, making the connections. She sat down on the floor beside him, her back holding the door shut as she reached up and spun the lock into place. If anyone came around they were just assume that Josh had locked his office while he was on the Hill and that she was off on one of the million tasks Josh delegated down to her every day. "Is this going to be a thing?"

"Probably not. But I'm going to have to make a statement before I leave. I wanted to hold off on that until after I got back, but…" Sam trailed off, knowing Donna could gather the rest. "Can I hide from Toby for a little while? I know he doesn't blame the situation on me but he's been in a shitty mood for a few weeks and I would really like to avoid being in his line of fire for as long as possible. I don't know that I could take it right now," he admitted.

Realizing that her friend was going through hell and had yet to give in to what she was sure was probably an overpowering urge to break down and cry, Donna moved a little closer and draped her arm around Sam's shoulders, pulling his head to rest on hers. "This is going to be tough for you, politically, but I don't know if anyone's thought about how all this is going to be for you, emotionally. Let me be that person, Sam. I'm here for you, no matter what. Okay?" Sam nodded slightly. "This has got to be so hard for you, and you've been so strong so far, but you don't have to be strong around me. Just let it go. You're safe here. I'm not going to let anything happen to you," Donna said soothingly.

He turned so he was facing her and he buried his face in her chest, finally allowing his emotions the release they so desperately needed.

After several minutes Sam managed to pull himself together. "Sorry," he said as he swiped at the tears that stained his cheeks.

"Don't apologize. I'm here for you, remember? Let everyone else worry about the politics of this. You and me? We can deal with the emotional fallout," Donna said as she tenderly dried his tears and smoothed his hair down. "Okay?"

"Okay," Sam conceded. He had never really had anyone who went out of their way to make him feel as safe as he did with Donna and he wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to do. "I… I don't know why this is hurting so much," he admitted.

Donna, ever the perceptive one, had an answer ready for him. "You mentioned that you and your dad were trying to mend fences after you found out about his mistress… about Theresa," she said calmly. "How good are things between the two of you?"

Sam hung his head. "Not good. Better than they could be, but still pretty bad," he confessed. "I… he could have died… he was coming home with his… with his family… his _other_ family… and he could have died." He could feel the tears pushing their way forth once again but this time he fought against them. "I've never even met my sister… she might not wake up, and I've never even met her, and she's left her daughter in my care."

"But your dad is going to be okay, and I'm sure that if your sister is anywhere near as stubborn as you she'll be up and about in no time, so stop torturing yourself with the 'what if' scenarios because they didn't happen," Donna said. She let her words hang in the air for a minute before changing topics. "Why exactly are you hiding from Toby? And don't deny that you are. Your poker face is almost as bad as Josh's."

"He's going to want me to make a statement and I don't think I can do it right now," Sam divulged.

* * *

The problem with hiding out in Josh's office was that Josh came back. And, naturally, he hadn't planned on needing the keys to the office that he hadn't locked once since moving in, so when he tried to open the door he couldn't.

Which led to him bellowing for Donna.

Sam had started getting more comfortable confiding in Donna about the plethora of emotional that were overpowering him, and Donna was sure that he felt a lot better having confronted his fears by speaking them aloud. Unfortunately the tumult of emotions had taken their toll on Sam and he had fallen asleep, curled up against Donna's body. Donna was content just to hold Sam, running her fingers through his hair and marvelling at how deep the feelings she felt for the man in her arms truly ran within her.

Josh's cry for his wayward assistant woke Sam from his slumber.

"Did I fall asleep?" Sam asked, embarrassed.

"Just for a little while," Donna admitted as they got to their feet. She reached out and smoothed down his 'bed head' before unlocking the door and opening it for Josh.

"Oh, good, the Deputy Communications Director and the leggy blonde assistant locked in my office with the blinds drawn. This won't create too many rumours," Josh muttered as he headed for his desk. "Toby's looking for you," he said to Sam.

"Yeah, apparently he's running for Congress," Donna said as she smoothed her skirt self-consciously.

"Toby's running for Congress?" Josh frowned.

"No, Sam is," Donna corrected.

Sam shook his head. "Except I'm not."

"Then why did she say you are?" Josh questioned.

"Danny thinks I am. Or he wants people to think I am. It's complicated. Basically I'm trying to stay out of Toby's line of sight until I leave town," Sam said. He refused to say that he was hiding, even though that was what he was doing.

Josh smirked. "That doesn't explain why you have button marks on your forehead." Donna blushed and Sam avoided looking Josh in the eye. "Okay, what was really going on in here while I was gone? 'Cause I was joking before, but, seriously, there's enough going on around here without you two doing dirty things in the White House."

Donna crossed her arms across her chest. "So, hypothetically speaking, it would be okay if we were doing 'dirty things' outside the White House?" she asked. Josh paled and Sam blushed as red as Donna had ever seen him. "Never mind. Josh, I'm gonna need that list of people you pissed off in the next half hour. Also, Sam, you should probably talk to Toby before you leave because he'll only get angrier if this thing festers for two days." And with that she left the office.

Sam sighed heavily. "I should go find Toby," he said reluctantly.

"What the hell were you two doing in here?" Josh called as Sam headed down the corridor to the Communications bullpen.

* * *

Almost as if he had some creepy kind of sixth sense, Toby was on Sam the moment he came within ten feet of his office.

"You're going to have to make a statement. We were hoping to hold off until you got back but CJ got the question—"

"A variation on the question," Sam cut in.

"—and she denied everything so the moment you step on a plane to LA it'll be the only thing she hears about, and, in turn, the only thing everyone else hears about," Toby said, talking over his deputy.

Sam shook his head. "I'm not making a statement. At least not until I get back. I say anything now and I've got to deal with reporters on two sides of the continent trying to get their story. I don't even know if my mother knows any of this yet—I don't want her finding out all the details of my father's affair from the LA Times or whatever paper her latest maid picks up from the Bodega. Let CJ leak the fact that my family was in a car accident and I'm going to take care of some legal work in LA. I'll make a statement when I get back if I have to, but nothing until then."

Toby knew how Sam got about family, so he didn't push the issue. Instead he tried to figure out who would be the best reporter for CJ to leak to this time.


	3. Chapter 3

_**SINS OF THE FATHER**_

_RATED R_

_FIRST PART OF THE 'HISTORY REPEATS' SERIES_

_SAM/DONNA ROMANCE_

_SPOILERS FOR _'SOMEONE'S GOING TO EMERGENCY, SOMEONE'S GOING TO JAIL'

* * *

Despite the fact that CJ had leaked the truth to the press, rumours of Sam's Congressional aspirations dominated her press briefings. Sam had been in California for two days and CJ was one press briefing away from having a nervous breakdown. "We need Sam to get back here. Either that or we need something to take the spotlight off of this because I'm not sure how much longer the press will lay off based on the minimal leak that we offered up," CJ announced in Senior Staff.

"He'll be home tonight, CJ. He already e-mailed me a copy of the statement he wrote. It covers everything we need it to and nothing we don't," Toby said calmly. The 'big brother' thing he had felt while defending Sam's job during the call girl fiasco had come back with a vengeance and, until he could figure out a way to make it go away Toby decided that there was nothing he could do except go with it.

"Okay, I've got a thing today so, Josh, you're me for the next twenty four hours," Leo said. Josh's eyes lit up as CJ and Toby hung their heads. Handing Josh a position of power almost always led to no good for anyone.

"What could possibly be so important that you leave this moron in charge?" CJ asked bluntly. For someone who made a living being tactful she was more than adept at cutting right to the heart of the matter.

"Mallory," Leo said. CJ and Toby nodded, not understanding because neither one of them had children of their own, but knowing that Leo had given up a lot for his career, especially when it came to his family, and there was no way that they could begrudge him something that he shouldn't have to fight for to begin with—time with his daughter. "CJ, make sure that Education Reform is your first and last stop at every briefing today because you're right. The press isn't going to want to sit on a White House staffer who might be running for Congress, especially when we don't even know if the President is going to run again. Make education the big story. Toby, I need you to meet with Greg Talon. I need to know what side he's going to come down on and I need to know by lunch. Josh, Donna and Margaret are going to double-team you to make sure that you don't screw this country up in the next fourteen hours. If you screw up or create a secret plan to fight _**anything**_ I will kill you in so many ways they won't even be able to ID your body through DNA, am I clear?"

Josh paled slightly but didn't lose his composure. "Crystal. Is Mal okay?" he asked, concerned for his childhood friend and surrogate sister.

"Chicken pox. She never had it as a kid. Apparently it has already run through half her class and is expected to get the other half by the end of the month. Her mother is in England, shopping with money she stole from me in the divorce and you know how Mallory gets when she's sick," Leo said. Josh nodded and smirked slightly. "Okay. Get out. I have calamine lotion to buy."

CJ and Toby headed out quickly. "This is going to be eighteen kinds of bad," CJ said to Toby.

"Uh-huh," Toby nodded.

* * *

Miraculously Josh managed to keep his mouth shut unless his opinions were called upon and the day was smooth sailing until the President was called to the Situation Room. The only thing Josh said to Donna before racing after the President was that she would need to pick Sam up from the airport, which was fine with her because it meant that she got to go home early for the first time in many moons.

Waiting at baggage claim, Donna sipped an iced mocha and flipped through a fashion magazine trying to find styles that would flatter her body type for the next ball she got the chance to attend. She knew she wouldn't be able to afford the names featured in the magazine but she had always had good luck finding decent looking knock-offs of clothing by the biggest names in the fashion industry.

Her caffeine buzz refreshed and four pages folded to mark the items she wanted to keep an eye out for later Donna spotted Sam in the crowd of arriving travellers.

"I thought Josh was picking us up," Sam said as he pulled Donna into a warm embrace. Two days of assorted family members was enough for Sam. He'd spent some time with his father, had a couple of tense conversations with Theresa, sat at his sister's bedside for a few hours during which she didn't wake up once, and he'd even managed to get away to have dinner with his mother because he knew that if he was in the SoCal area and didn't drop by for at least one meal he would end up very, very dead. Sam loved his family, but there was only so much he could take. It was good to be home.

"He has to staff the President today. Mallory caught the chicken pox from one of her students and, according to Josh she is the absolute worst sick person in the world, so, since Mrs. McGarry is in London until tomorrow Leo took the day off to sit with Mallory and make sure she doesn't scratch too much," Donna said. She knelt down so that she was at eye level with the little girl who was holding onto the fabric of Sam's pants in a death grip. "You must be Meredith. My name is Donna."

"Donna works with me," Sam explained, his hand moving to rest tenderly amongst the mop of messy brown curls atop his niece's head.

"Hi," Meredith said shyly. She peered up at Sam with wide blue eyes full of innocence and curiosity. If she didn't know any better Donna would have sworn the little girl was Sam's daughter. "Do I get to live with Donna, too?"

Sam blushed and Donna smiled. "No, sweetheart, but anytime you want to see me, for any reason, just give me a call, okay?" Donna said, pulling one of her cards out of her purse and handing it to the little girl. Meredith stared at the numbers for several moments before tucking it away in the bib pocket of her overalls.

The buzzer went off alerting everyone that was waiting that bags would be descending the conveyor belt and Sam told Meredith to keep her eye out for her bag. Being an expert at travel Sam had only packed what could fit in a carry-on, but Meredith had packed many essential items like stuffed animals and books that she just couldn't live without as well as enough outfits to keep her clothed for a month without doing laundry. "There it is!" Meredith exclaimed when a large suitcase in a funky floral print more commonly seen on Hawaiian shirts came sliding down toward them. Sam stepped forward and heaved it up before it could travel away from them and the three started working their way toward the parking structure. Sam was struggling with a wobbly wheel on the suitcase so Donna took Meredith's hand to make sure she didn't get separated from them.

"You didn't bring _your_ car, did you?" Sam asked sceptically. Donna's beat up Ford Pinto was unreliable at best and Sam was pretty sure that Meredith's bag was about the same size as the vehicle.

"No, Leo loaned me his 'guy' for a few hours," Donna said. "You don't want to stop at the office, do you?"

"I think if I did I would never get to leave," Sam said wryly.

"Toby was muttering something about actually chaining you to your desk this time. What was that about?" Donna asked as they approached Leo's car.

Rolling his eyes Sam hefted the bag into the trunk. Leo's driver was pushing eighty, suffered from osteoarthritis, and would probably break in half if he tried to lift the little girl's luggage. "He was a little angry when I told him about Lorie," Sam said, "and apparently he thought I couldn't get into trouble if he chained me to my desk and sent someone in to feed me periodically." Meredith giggled at that. Sam looked at Donna. "Yeah, she likes to torture me," he said before they got in the car.

"Well, Meredith, I think I can tell you some stories about your uncle that you'll like," Donna said with a smile. Then, off of Sam's look she added, "All G rated, of course." It didn't make Sam feel much better but he figured that Meredith deserved the chance to laugh after the ordeal she had just been through.

* * *

Zoey entered the anteroom for the Oval Office and greeted Charlie with a kiss. "Hey you," she smiled.

"Hey yourself," Charlie replied. "I thought you had study group after classes today." Out of the corner of his eye he could see Zoey's Secret Service agent standing in the doorway. At first it had been weird, dating someone who came with all the extra people that Zoey did, but he had gotten past that. He hadn't, however, gotten past the fear of her father. Dating the daughter of the man who can order the Navy, Marines, and the Army, not to mention the Secret Service, to visualize you as the enemy was more than somewhat disconcerting.

"Got cancelled," Zoey said as she perched herself on the edge of his desk. "I don't suppose he's got some time to spare for his baby girl," she said, nodding toward her father's office.

"Unfortunately not," Charlie said. "Situation Room," he added.

Zoey nodded. "Okay. I'm gonna go see if I can convince Josh to take a break, maybe grab a bite to eat," she said.

"Uh, Josh is staffing your father. He's waiting outside the Situation Room," Charlie said. He had never really understood why Josh didn't have the code word clearance that, as Deputy Chief of Staff, he should have had, but when he'd asked the President about it all he had been told was that it was Josh's decision to turn down the NSA's card and that the Administration stood by him. Whatever that meant.

"Oh. What about Donna?"

Charlie smiled wryly. "She's picking Sam up from the airport."

"Is anyone free for dinner?" Zoey pouted.

"The First Lady is in her office today, I could call Lilly and see if she's available," Charlie said. Zoey gave him the puppy dog eyes. "I would love to, Zoey, you know that. But Mrs. Landingham had a doctor's appointment and I've got to fill in for her while doing all of my work and there aren't enough hours in the day for me to do two full time jobs and eat."

Zoey hopped down off the desk. "Fine. I'll go see if mom has time for me," she said in the tone that told Charlie he was in trouble.

* * *

"Thanks Ken," Donna said before closing the car door. She struggled slightly with the heavy luggage but she managed to get it up the steps to Sam's front door while Sam carried his slumbering niece. Meredith had fallen asleep not long after they left the airport, not having slept since the night of the accident, and neither Sam nor Donna had the heart to wake her.

"You've still got your key, right?" Sam asked as he realized that he wouldn't be able to get his keys out of his pocket without dropping Meredith and that it would look very bad for Donna to reach into his pants pocket. Donna nodded and fumbled through her purse for a moment before smiling triumphantly and pulling out a set of keys that Sam figured weighed more than his laptop. "You're not moonlighting as a janitor are you?" he asked as she flipped through the keys to find the right one.

"The term is 'custodial staff', and when exactly would I find the time to moonlight? I work twenty hour days, six days a week," Donna said. "I'm the head assistant in Operations. I have to be able to get into any and all offices in my area, as well as all the file drawers. Plus I have my house keys, car keys, Josh's house keys and car keys, your house keys, the keys to my sister's house in Madison, and about ten keys that I don't really know the use of but I'm sure I'd find out if I threw them out so I'm keeping them anyway." She found the key to Sam's front door and quickly let them inside. "Office protocol decrees, ironically enough, that all keys to the offices be locked up while I'm in the office, by the way, so that's why I don't have to lug all these around all day."

Sam frowned. Thinking back he could remember Bonnie complaining about the number of keys she needed to keep track of. He'd never really thought much of it.

"I'll just put her down in my room," Sam decided.

"No need. C'mon. I've got a surprise for you," Donna said, leaving the rolling suitcase in the front hallway and tugging on Sam's sleeve to get him to follow her to what was now Meredith's room. "You didn't have much time before you left and I promised to help out any way that I could, so… I went shopping," she said as she pushed open the door and revealed what Sam decided was the perfect bedroom for his niece. "The, uh, mattress is new and you own it outright. The rest of the furniture is from one of those rental places because I knew you didn't know how long Meredith would be here. That's also why we decided not to paint the walls. Well, that, and the time factor," Donna rambled as Sam set the little girl down on the bed and took off her shoes before tucking her in under the covers.

"How did you get all this done?" Sam asked in amazement.

"Josh owes me about a year of paid vacation, so I took a day. Cathy handled Josh for the day, leaving him terrified and, I'm sure, very hungry. I got the furniture delivered after I got home from work the day you left. I bought sheets, curtains, pillows, and movies this morning and this afternoon I talked to some people and managed to get a woman named Norah Trell to pull double duty as tutor and babysitter Monday through Friday at a very reasonable rate for someone with her qualifications—which I will fill you in on once you're fully awake and can handle words with more than two syllables," Donna said.

Sam smiled gratefully. "Thank you for that."

"No problem. I figured that Meredith would pack some things, clothes and toys and stuff, but anything she needs or wants or whatever, just let me or CJ know and we'll either take Meredith or go with the two of you so that you don't have to fake a feminine side. Josh and Toby helped me move everything into the room and we turned that oddly shaped nook by the kitchen into a storage area for the things that you said you didn't want to go to Josh's," Donna continued.

Nodding, Sam tried to take that all in. "What about work?" he asked. He knew that when Donna said she had taken care of 'everything' she meant that she had taken care of _everything_.

"I spoke to Leo and the President and have been ordered to let you know that you have the next three days off unless there's an emergency. If there is one there will be a pass waiting for Meredith at the gate. Mrs. Bartlet is in town and has volunteered to watch her if you need to bring her with you to the office. Also the President expects to meet Meredith, as long as she's feeling up to it, tomorrow, but that can be stalled for a day or so because who better to know how jet lag feels, right?" Donna said with a lopsided smile. She had been witness to the President's tirades while dealing with jet lag—he'd fired Sam twice in her presence, Josh six times, and Mrs. Bartlet once, though that one had backfired in many, many ways.

Sam started to get a little worried. "Exactly how indebted to people am I going to be for this?"

"CJ says she expects a spa day. Josh and Toby want the finest scotch in the land. Other than that you're off the hook," Donna said.

"Okay, you're gonna have to write all that down for me," Sam said. He'd been ready to fall over since leaving DC two days earlier and he didn't foresee his condition getting any better without at least ten hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Donna smiled and pulled a stack of her infamous note cards out of her back pocket. "Itemized and ready for your perusal. There's an index that explains the colour-coding on top of the pile," she said, handing the package to Sam who looked at it dubiously before tucking it into his own pocket where he wouldn't lose it.

"Then I shall peruse after dinner. Is there anything I should be doing right now?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. Sleeping. Go catch a few hours. By the time you're rested enough that you can keep your eyes open for a conversation and, I don't know, retain some information, Meredith should be awake."

Sam pulled Donna into a tight embrace. "You are amazing," he whispered. "Thank you."

"Say that again after you get your credit card bill," Donna replied with a weak smile. She knew she had gone a bit overboard but she couldn't help herself.

"How did you get my credit card?" Sam asked, pulling back and lining Donna up with a glare that would have made Toby proud.

Fortunately for Donna she worked with Josh Lyman and was impervious.

"I didn't."

"Then how…?"

Donna smiled a Mona Lisa smile. "How many times do I have to tell you that I know _everything_?"

"So _everything_ includes…?"

"Yes, everything includes," Donna said with a firm nod.

Sam chuckled. "You are a dangerous person to know, Donnatella Moss."

"I hear that twice a day," Donna replied. "Now go get some sleep. I'll wake you when Meredith gets up."

"You're gonna stick around?" Sam asked, pleased.

"Unless you want me to leave," Donna said. She really hoped he didn't want her to, but she would understand if he did. The last time she had been back to Wisconsin it had been a weekend trip that left her feeling like crawling into a hole and dying. When she got back to work on Monday Josh had told her that she needed a vacation from her vacation. He'd been teasing her, but the sad thing was that it was the truth.

"Not in the least," Sam said. He hugged Donna tightly and placed a lingering kiss on her forehead before murmuring a 'goodnight' and stumbling off to his own bedroom.

* * *

The hallway was empty, which was good except that Josh had long since counted all the tiles on the floor and had given himself multiple lectures on the stupidity of giving back the NSA's card. At the time it had been the right thing to do, and on the whole Josh didn't regret it, but when it came to times of emergency and he was forced to sit on the sidelines he felt like kicking himself in the head.

"So everything's cool? The kid doesn't hate him or anything?" Josh asked. Boredom had led to Josh calling Donna, partially to bug her but mostly to get her opinion on how Sam was coping thus far with his surrogate daddy status.

"No, she doesn't, Joshua. It's not surprising, though. Sam is good with kids. You, on the other hand, should be kept away from anyone under legal drinking age to prevent emotional scarring," Donna replied. "What are you doing? It sounds quiet."

"I've been banished to the only hallway in the White House that doesn't have anything to hold my interest. There are, however, seven hundred and twenty six tiles from end to end," Josh said.

"And you know this because…?" Donna prompted.

"Hey, I've been standing here since ten in the morning," Josh complained. The President had told him that he needed to wait outside the door to the Situation Room until a decision had been made. "Tell me about the kid. Is she a devil child with sticky hands and cookie crumbs on her face?"

"Seriously, you need to stay far, far away from any and all children, Josh," Donna said. Josh knew she was rolling her eyes. "Meredith is great. She's incredibly intelligent for her age, very well behaved, and she can bring the verbal almost as well as Sam can. We didn't get to talk much, though, 'cause she fell asleep in the car, but I'm gonna stick around here for a while and make sure that she gets settled in."

Josh smiled. He knew that Donna had been determined to make this situation as easy for Sam and Meredith as possible. He wanted to do that, too, but he was so hopeless at non-political things that he had decided that helping with the furniture and picking up some of the slack for Sam at work was the extent of how he would help with the Meredith situation. "Good. Make sure Sam gets some sleep. Whenever he has to face his family he ends up getting all maudlin if he doesn't get some quality sleep after it's over."

"He's already in bed. So is Meredith. I'm just about to run to the store because I realized that, with all the stuff we were doing to make that office become Meredith's bedroom we didn't stock the fridge and all Sam had in there were the leftovers from when I came over the night this all started," Donna said. "I'm sure he'd appreciate it if you called him in a few hours to find out how everything's going," she added.

"I was going to wait until morning, let him get some more sleep, but if you think he'll be up in a few hours I'll check in," Josh said. "Assuming I haven't gone insane from standing in this damn hallway," he muttered causing Donna to laugh softly and comment on how it wouldn't take much for him to go insane.

* * *

_We're nearing the end of this portion of the series._


	4. Chapter 4

_**SINS OF THE FATHER**_

_RATED R_

_FIRST PART OF THE 'HISTORY REPEATS' SERIES_

_SAM/DONNA ROMANCE_

_SPOILERS FOR _'SOMEONE'S GOING TO EMERGENCY, SOMEONE'S GOING TO JAIL'

* * *

After wrapping up his conversation with Donna, Josh went back to waiting for the President to either wrap up what he was doing or give him further directions. He had been standing there for so long that he had missed lunch—something his doctor had said in no uncertain terms was a 'no-no'—and, as much as he hated to admit it, he was feeling the lapse in his new routine. Skipping meals, living on coffee—which he didn't have—and not exercising were all things of the past for Josh Lyman. He went to the gym at least twice a week, ate three meals a day at times that were as regular as he could possibly make them, and, though he hated to do it, he had even cut down on his caffeine intake. His doctor, Donna, and Mrs. Bartlet—not to mention his mother—had been after him for years to do all these things, but he had blown them all off until his cousin, Timothy, who was two years younger than he was—with a much less stressful job—had suffered a massive heart attack that led back to too much stress, a crappy diet, no exercise, and too much caffeine. At first Josh had thought that he would be fine because, obviously he handled everything better than Tim did, but then he realized that Tim didn't have the pre-existing heart condition—he refused to call it what it was which was internal scarring of the heart muscle from a bullet—and combined with his high stress job and tendency to hold the important things in, Josh had finally caved to his doctor's orders.

His mind had begun to wander when the door to the Situation Room opened and the President, followed by Nancy and Fitzwallace, came out, faces grim.

"Mr. President?" Josh questioned. He hadn't seen Bartlet looking so grim since he talked to the crew of the small ship that was destroyed in Hurricane Sarah the year before.

"Get Toby, Sam, and CJ in my office," Bartlet said stonily.

Josh nodded. "Okay, but, uh, sir, Sam just got back from California and I don't know if he will be able to get anyone to watch… um… Meredith," he said, stumbling over his words. Seeing someone he idolized and had always thought of as so squared away acting the way Bartlet was had Josh feeling like Armageddon was upon them. Which, considering that Fitzwallace and Nancy had the same look on their faces, Josh thought that that might just be the case.

"He can bring her in. Get everyone back in. We're going to need a full staff tonight," Bartlet said.

"Yes, Mr. President," Josh said as he rushed toward his office to pull everyone back in.

* * *

Donna was passing Meredith's room when she noticed that the girl was awake and looking around the room with a curiosity that was definitely a Seaborn trait. "Hey," Dona smiled. "Do you like your room?"

"It's okay," Meredith shrugged. "Uncle Sam said he hadn't gotten it set up yet, though. He made it sound like I would be sleeping on the couch or something."

"He didn't know it was finished. Some of our friends at work did it for you," Donna said as she entered the room and moved to sit down on the edge of the twin-sized bed. "I, uh, wasn't sure what you liked, but I have a niece who is about your age, so I asked her for some advice on what girls your age like. If you don't like it we can change anything you want."

"No, it's great. I think it's bigger than my room at home," Meredith said with a small smile. Donna returned the smile but didn't say anything, knowing that she shouldn't push. "How long have your known my uncle?" Meredith asked, changing subjects as quickly as Donna did from time to time.

Thinking back, Donna calculated the time. She had met Sam half an hour after Josh handed her his pass. It had been exactly three years, four months, six days, twelve hours, five minutes earlier that Sam had walked into her area in front of Josh's office to get his opinion on a speech they were working on for the next rally. "For a little over three years. We met when he was trying to get the President elected. I joined the campaign about two months after he did," Donna said. Meredith didn't need to know that she knew the exact minute that they had met. She hadn't even confessed that little secret to her diary.

"Mommy and Grandpa said that he was an idiot when he left… um… when he left the law firm in New York," Meredith said, unable to remember 'Gage Whitney'.

Donna smiled. "President Bartlet wasn't supposed to win the election when your uncle joined the campaign. A lot of people left high paying jobs to work on the campaign."

"Why?"

"Because Jed Bartlet is the real thing," Sam said from the doorway, startling Donna and Meredith. "Sorry. I heard voices."

Meredith crawled up onto the bed and hugged the pillow to her chest. "What do you mean 'the real thing'?" she asked.

"It's kinda hard to explain," Sam said. "He's… a good man. He's honest and brilliant and he knows how to make the decisions that no one else can. It's… I don't know how to explain it."

"It's just something you know," Donna agreed. "I saw him on TV one day and everything he said just… seemed right," she said with a shrug. "I left Wisconsin the next day and joined everyone in New Hampshire."

"And never looked back," Meredith said, smiling like she had just heard the 'happily ever after' part of her favourite fairy tale.

Sam smirked and Donna shot him a glare. "She looked back once. She left the campaign and went back to Wisconsin for a few weeks, but she came back to us, which we were all incredibly thankful for because Josh was going insane without her," Sam said.

"Josh… the guy you said I should call 'Uncle Josh'?" Meredith frowned.

"Yeah," Sam smiled.

"Uncle Josh?" Donna asked, amused. Josh would get a kick out of that. He didn't particularly want kids of his own but he had said he would love to have nieces and nephews or godchildren to spoil and send home to their parents.

Meredith nodded emphatically. "There's Uncle Sam, of course, and then there's Uncle Josh, Aunt CJ, and Unkie T," she said, happy that she remembered all the names Sam had told her on the flight from LA. At the term 'Unkie T' Donna looked over at Sam who just smiled and shrugged. "Then there's Cathy who scares Uncle Sam even though he loves her like a sister, and Carol, Bonnie, Ginger, Margaret, Charlie, and Mrs. Landingham," Meredith continued, listing off the other people that Sam had told her about during the long flight. "And the President who I call 'Mr. President' and the First Lady who I call 'Dr. Bartlet'," she said before her face scrunched up as she tried to remember who else she was supposed to know. "Oh, and Mr. McGarry," she said, finally remembering the last name on the list she had repeated over and over to herself so she didn't make any mistakes. "That's it, right? I didn't forget anyone?" she asked Sam.

"You got all the Senior Staff and their assistants," Sam nodded. "And do you remember what to say when you see the blonde Republican lawyer with the Southern accent?"

"That everything you say is right and everything she says is wrong," Meredith dutifully repeated.

"Exactly," Sam grinned. Donna rolled her eyes but managed to refrain from comment. "So, I was promised there would be food when I woke up, but I'm not smelling anything food-like," Sam said, looking at Donna.

"Pizza's on its way. There was nothing at the store that looked appetizing and I'm too tired to cook," Donna said. "You need to go to the store more often, Sam."

Meredith giggled, though it wasn't clear at what. "Yeah, 'cause I cook at home all the time," Sam said, rolling his eyes. "You like pizza, right?" he asked Meredith.

"As long as it doesn't have those little icky fish things that grandpa likes," Meredith said, screwing up her nose.

"Anchovies," Sam explained to Donna. Donna scrunched up her nose in agreement. "Don't worry about the icky fish, Meredith," Sam said, "Donna has pretty basic tastes in pizza. Cheese or veggie. What did you get tonight?"

"One large cheese and one large meat lovers in deference to your tastes in pizza," Donna said.

"Again I thank you," Sam said.

He started looking around the room, taking in all the changes. Instead of basic white mini blinds covering the windows there were now bright sunshine yellow curtains blocking out the last rays of sunlight. The hardwood floor was partially covered by a soft-looking rug shaped like a giant sunflower. There was a twin bed against the wall where his filing cabinets had been, a thick comforter that looked like someone had been splatter-painting on it covering the cotton sheets. There was a comfortable looking chair with a few stuffed animals and the Raggedy Anne doll CJ had given to him sitting it in and a bookcase was sitting in a corner with a few books and DVDs already in place. The dresser matched the bed and the bookcase, and was, he suspected, empty. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a large wooden chest that sat next to the door. The chest reminded him of his grandmother's hope chest.

"You did a good job in here, Donna," Sam commented.

"Thank you. I wanted to paint the walls, but I figured that you might want your office back one day…" Donna trailed off. "Anyway, I didn't do all that much. I just made some phone calls and got the guys at work to pitch in."

Donna's pager began buzzing on her hip and she looked at the screen and cringed. "It's Josh. All hands on deck," Donna said. Sam nodded and turned quickly, heading to his room to change. "Okay, Meredith, how would you like to see the White House?"

* * *

CJ tugged her dangling chandelier earrings out of their holes as she headed for her office. "First date I've had in three months and I get called back in," she muttered before tucking the earrings away in her pocket. "What's going on?" she asked, changing courses when she spotted Josh who was yelling at someone over the phone.

Josh held up his hand for CJ to wait as he continued his conversation. "I don't care what it takes. Get a message to him. I don't care if you have to train a pigeon to bring him a note, I need him in my office within the hour!" he shouted before hanging up. "I hate being this guy," he said to CJ.

"No you don't."

"You're right, I don't," Josh smiled.

"What's going on?" CJ asked, completely focused on the job once again. Or, as focused as she could be with four Grasshoppers under her belt.

"I wish I knew. The President came out of the Situation Room with Fitz and Nancy and told me to pull everyone in. Whatever it is, though, has them all scared."

CJ sighed heavily. "Is Leo coming in?"

"The President wants a full staff tonight," Josh said. "I've gotta… make some more people angry."

"Have fun," CJ called lamely before turning around and heading for her office once again.

* * *

"Okay, job one: pizza," Sam declared after they cleared security.

"Shouldn't job one be finding out why you were called in?" Meredith asked.

"Okay, yeah, you're right, that should be job one. But job two should most definitely be pizza," Sam amended. "Can you take care of that?" he asked Donna who nodded and smiled at the fact that one of the President's most trusted advisors was getting his priorities set straight by an eight year old. "Good. Now, Meredith, I'm gonna be busy for, well, probably most of the night. And, frankly, I don't really know what you're going to do."

Donna started taking off her coat. "I called Zoey while you were changing. She'll hang out with Meredith. If this goes as late as I think it will she can stay in the Residence. It's not like she won't be safe," Donna said with a smirk.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you," Sam said. "Can you take her over? I should probably go find Toby, see if he has any idea what's going on."

"Go," Donna said, giving Sam a little push toward Communications. "Tell Josh I'll be at my desk in fifteen minutes!" she called as Sam rounded a corner. She turned back to Meredith who was looking more than a little on edge. "You a little freaked?" she asked. Meredith nodded. "That's okay. Just remember that everyone here knows what they're doing and that you are in what is probably the safest building in the world. Okay?"

"Okay," Meredith said.

Nodding, Donna took the little girl's hand. "Okay, let's go meet Zoey," she said.

"Who's Zoey?" Meredith asked.

"Zoey is the President's youngest daughter," Donna said as they made their way toward the Residence.

Meredith frowned. "She's the one with the pretty smile, right?" she asked.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Donna smiled.

"Grandpa likes watching the TV when the President's on. He has this diary thing in his office at the house and he counts the number of times he sees Uncle Sam a week. He filled a whole page last May… but Uncle Sam wasn't happy and they wouldn't let me watch most of the time," Meredith said. Donna felt a twinge in her heart as she thought about the little girl hearing that her uncle, who she had never even met, had been with the President when shots were fired in Roslyn. Thankfully Meredith didn't seem to know what had happened; just that Sam had been on TV a lot. "Grandpa tried to tell me who everybody was and what they did but I didn't really get it. Uncle Sam made it a lot more clear on the plane."

"It's hard to explain the job if you don't actually see everything as it happens," Donna said. "Okay, make sure the Secret Service agents can see your pass," she said once they reached the doors that separated the Residence from the rest of the White House.

* * *

"You're back!" CJ said happily.

"Apparently," Sam said. He'd been to his office, which was a mess, then he'd gone to Toby's office to find it dark and empty, and he'd been on his way to Josh's office when he saw CJ running toward him.

CJ hugged him tightly. Sam could smell the scent of her beloved Grasshoppers on her breath and he made a mental note to talk to her about that before she briefed the press. "You're not going to be allowed to leave again, you know that, right?"

"Donna intimated as much," Sam nodded. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

CJ shrugged. "Josh doesn't know what's going on and he's the one calling everyone in," she said. "How's your dad?"

"Hobbling along nicely. How did things go here?"

"We got by without you, Spanky," CJ teased.

"I would never imply that you couldn't," Sam said. That was Josh's ego, not Sam's. "Seriously, though. The education bill, the speech for the dinner, the gun control proposal? Is there anything I need to know?"

"If there is anything—and keep in mind that I'm not saying that there is anything—you don't need to worry about it tonight. C'mon. The President wants us in the Oval Office for a briefing," CJ said, looping her arm through Sam's and giving a none-too-gentle tug to get him moving. "Tell me about the happenings back home. I haven't been back to California since that fundraiser thing and that doesn't even count 'cause all I saw was the hotel and the house. Is the ocean still there? Was the sun still shining?"

"Yes, the ocean was still there and the sun was still shining," Sam said with a frown. "CJ, when Josh called you, what were you doing?"

"I, my dear Samson, was on a date. A _good_ date," CJ said emphatically.

"Okay, one, that's _not_ my name. And, two, how much did you have to drink on this good date?"

CJ chuckled. "I'm fine, Sammy my boy. You worry too much."

"CJ, you're drunk," Sam said.

"Maybe just a little," CJ said, holding her fingers a centimetre apart.

Sam shook his head. "Go home. Sleep it off. Toby and I will handle the press tonight," he said. Technically CJ didn't report to him, she reported to Toby, but Sam was hoping that she wouldn't remember that fact in her current state of inebriation.

"No Josh," CJ said sternly. "Tie him to a chair if he tries to get in my Press Room."

"Deal," Sam said. He didn't care what conditions CJ had. He was just glad that she wasn't going to fight him. Fighting with someone who is drunk is difficult enough, but fighting with a drunk CJ usually sent Sam to the ER. Besides, the last time Josh got behind the podium he started going on about his Secret Plan to Fight Inflation. And, while they all laughed about it now, back then it had been a huge thing that CJ had had to deal with. "Take a cab!" he called as CJ began dancing her way toward the exit. The last thing he needed was more people in his life getting in car accidents.

Once CJ was out of sight Sam headed for the Oval Office, hoping he wouldn't find any other drunken coworkers along the way.

* * *

Donna knocked on the door to one of the rooms she had only visited once before. The door opened a moment later and Donna smiled at Zoey who was looking every bit the college student in well-worn jeans and a Georgetown tee shirt. "I figured that it would be easier to entertain here in Annie's room," Zoey said as she ushered Donna and Meredith in.

"Good plan," Donna said. "Zoey, this is Meredith Kassin. Meredith, this is Zoey Bartlet."

"It's nice to meet you," Meredith said shyly.

"Don't be shy," Zoey said.

"She's a little nervous. Her grandfather watches political shows religiously so she's grown up on the story of your family," Donna explained.

"Why don't you go pick out a game for us to play? There are some of my niece's games over there in the closet," Zoey said to Meredith. Meredith looked up at Donna, asking for permission, and the blonde nodded and released the girl's hand. Once Meredith was out of earshot Zoey's expression grew grave. "What's going on tonight? Charlie said my dad was in the Situation Room all day and now he's called the staff back to work. What are we looking at?"

Donna sighed heavily. "I wish to god I knew, Zoey. Josh paged me and Sam and I came in. I haven't seen anyone yet and Josh didn't say why we were being pulled in. I don't want Meredith to worry, though. She's got enough going on right now."

Zoey nodded. "How's her mother?"

"When Sam left she was still drifting in and out of consciousness. More out than in. The doctors are waiting for her to level out before they start sedating her. She has to stay immobile and they're worried that she'll come to and set back what little healing has already happened," Donna said. She looked over at Meredith who was looking at the stack of board games with a critical eye. "I don't know how much Meredith knows."

"Okay. Light topics only," Zoey nodded. "Has she had dinner? I was going to get the chef to whip something up ahead of time but I didn't know what she liked or if she'd had dinner yet or anything so I held off."

"My next job is ordering pizza for the entire staff. I'll send one up here, too," Donna said.

"No anchovies," Zoey said.

Donna smiled. "Meredith calls them the 'little icky fish things'."

"We're gonna get along just fine," Zoey decided with a smile. "I should let you get out of here. Josh is probably about to blow a gasket."

"Probably," Donna agreed. "You've got my numbers if you need anything. Sam's probably going take his phone off the hook in about an hour so call me if you need anything."

Zoey grinned. "You're acting like Lizzie did whenever she left Annie with a new babysitter. Go to work. I'm an expert at babysitting, and if I need any help I've got a full compliment of Secret Service agents at my disposal. You need to keep your head in whatever is going on right now."

"Yeah, you're right. I should go," Donna nodded. "Bye, Meredith!" she called.

"Bye!" Meredith called back without looking away from the smaller stack of games she had pared her choices down to.

* * *

"Mrs Landingham, you're here late," Sam commented as he entered the anti-room to the Oval Office.

"And you're here about four days early," Mrs Landingham replied.

"Not by choice. Who else is here?" Sam asked.

"Leo and the President are in there with Chairman Fitzwallace and Dr McNally," she said. "Josh just ran out in a frenzy. I don't know where CJ and Toby are."

"CJ went home. Too many Grasshoppers," Sam said. "Should I go in?" Mrs Landingham nodded and Sam rapped his knuckles on the door before slipping inside. "Good evening, Mr President," Sam said before nodding his greetings to the other people in the room.

"How is your family, Sam?" Bartlet asked.

"They've been better but everything is going to be fine. Theresa wants me to thank you for the flowers you sent," Sam said, "and for sending Dr Karr. Shayla's condition has improved much faster since he took over her treatment." He had expected flowers but he had been in no way prepared for one of the world's foremost experts in neurology to show up and take over his sister's case. It meant a lot to Sam, and to his father.

"I'm sorry your visit was so brief," Bartlet said. "That being said, it's a damned good thing you're back because we're about to be hit with the worst."

Sam took a slow breath. "What do you need me to do?"

* * *

Josh felt like he was losing his mind. Half of the staff was unreachable—which was a major protocol violation—and the half he had managed to reach was taking their time getting back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The only thing that was showing the least bit of sunshine on his day was that the Secret Service had confirmed that Donna and Sam had signed in and were somewhere in the West Wing, though he had no idea where.

"Wha'cha looking for?"

Josh jumped, caught completely off-guard by his assistant. "Seriously, bells, all around your neck," Josh announced.

"Do I look like a tiny reindeer?" Donna asked. Frowning at the look that crossed Josh's face, Donna continued. "Don't answer that. What's going on and how can I help?"

"Get these people in," Josh said, thrusting a few pages into her hand. "Also make sure Carol is ready to page the press. We won't have time to leak this. It's going to be dirty and fast and I can't even begin to tell you how many kinds of bad this whole situation is."

Donna nodded. "Phone calls and Carol. Anything else?"

"Food. Pizza or Chinese," Josh said as he searched for a briefing booklet he had lost in the piles of papers on his desk.

"Already done. Next?"

"Uh, yeah. Try to track down Margaret. Leo needs some file and he says that she hid it for or from him, he'd not sure which but whichever it is he needs it, like, four hours ago," Josh said, wondering, not for the first time, if the assistants at the White House were all as diabolically evil as Donna was when it came to their filing systems. Josh knew for a fact that Margaret had a system of her own, and even Ginger and Bonnie had different systems from each other and they were _both_ Toby's assistants. It was a plot, he was sure of it. But, all evidence to the contrary, Josh Lyman was not a stupid man, so he had never voiced such thoughts around any of the co-conspirators.

"Okay," Donna said. "Josh, what's going on?"

Josh sighed heavily. He hated being the one to tell Donna things like this, mostly because he hated to see her face do the thing it did when she looked like he had just killed her hamster, but she would be able to be ten times more effective if she was in the loop and he needed Donna to be at her usual effectiveness level. "There are an unknown number of terrorists who have taken over our embassy in Tel Aviv. They've got over a hundred hostages, including—"

"The Vice President," Donna finished for him. Josh nodded. "Do you know if the networks have this? I mean, it's been going on all day but I haven't heard anything and I was watching the news for most of the day."

"No. Thankfully. There's been a total media blackout in the region for the past two days. I honestly couldn't tell you why, nor do I care because right now I have to figure out a way to convince the President that he's going to have to start thinking about people to replace the Vice President without sounding like I think Hoynes and the other hundred hostages aren't coming out of that building alive," Josh said. He gathered up some files and turned to leave. "Sam's here?"

"Yeah."

"And the kid?"

"_Meredith_ is with Zoey in the Residence," Donna said.

Nodding, Josh reached out and took Donna's hand. "Thanks for being so great with Sam on all this."

"He's my friend, too," Donna said. "Besides, supportive as the rest of the Senior Staff may be, Leo and the President are the only ones with children and they're also the only people who aren't referring to Meredith as '_the kid_' constantly. Sam has been freaking out, Josh. Last week he was Sam Seaborn, single guy, and suddenly he's got an eight year old girl living with him—something that is no doubt going to make his life, both personal and political, a complete and utter living hell, not that he'd ever do anything different because it's Sam and this is who he is and we love him for this way—and the only thing he cares about is Meredith who has essentially lost her mother and been shipped across the country to live with a man she knows from the TV and her grandfather's stories. And you and CJ and Toby will do your best, but the bachelor brigade around here isn't going to be able to be there for Sam because none of you have kids or want kids whereas I still hold out hope for the cliché white picket fence thing."

"I want kids," Josh protested.

"No, Josh, you don't want kids. You just don't want to actually come out and say that you don't want kids because, one, it's bad politics and one day you want to run for office somewhere, and two, it would quite literally kill your mother," Donna countered.

"Okay, first of all, I want kids, I just don't want kids right now because I've seen what politics does to families and there's no way I'm going to be a part time dad. Second, this is hardly the time or the place to discuss this. Third, call those people, talk to Carol, find Margaret, and make sure that whatever you ordered gets to the Oval while it's still hot."

"When was the last time your food was cold for any reason other than you forgot to eat it?"

"Fine. I'll see you later."

"Seriously, Josh, when have I given you cold food and how could you think that I would give cold pizza to the President of the United States unless that's what he asked for specifically?"

Chastened, Josh took a deep breath and prayed he didn't screw things up even more than he already had. "Okay, look. You're indignation is completely warranted, but, seriously, it could not come at a worse time. I'm sorry, Donna. You're an amazing assistant and I don't tell you that enough," Josh said honestly. "I'm just… under a lot of pressure at the moment… and you're going to be the most visible target for my anger and frustration until this is resolved."

"As opposed to all the other times when I'm the target of your anger and frustration because I deserve it?" Donna asked, arms crossed across her chest.

Josh hit his head against the doorframe. "Can we have this fight another time, please?" he begged.

"Fine. Tell Sam that Meredith got settled with Zoey just fine," Donna said before pushing past Josh to get to her desk.

A moment later Josh hurried down the hall to the Oval Office. Fighting with Donna always bothered him, but he had bigger things to deal with and not much time to do it in, so he forced himself to forget about Donna until he had the time to devote his attention to her completely.

He just didn't know when that would be.


	5. Chapter 5

_**SINS OF THE FATHER**_

_RATED R_

_FIRST PART OF THE 'HISTORY REPEATS' SERIES_

_SAM/DONNA ROMANCE_

_SPOILERS FOR _'SOMEONE'S GOING TO EMERGENCY, SOMEONE'S GOING TO JAIL'

* * *

_I decided to make Hoynes more human for the purposes of this story. If you have a problem with that, or anything else I've written, please feel free to let me know._

_Also, I can't quite remember what his wife's name was but I think it started with an S so I made it Susanna because I remember reading it as that in some other fic somewhere along the line._

* * *

Sam was trying to wrap his head around the fact that Vice President Hoynes was one of the hostages in the embassy. He'd never really liked the guy, to be honest, but they had needed him on the Ticket to win the South and he was the Vice President so he had always kept his views more or less to himself. Josh, Toby, CJ, and Leo knew how he felt about the Vice President, just like Sam knew how they felt about the Texan as well. The truth was that no one on the President's staff liked Hoynes all that much. And none of them trusted him at all.

However, neither the fact that Sam didn't like Hoynes or that Sam didn't trust Hoynes mattered at the moment because things like likeability and trust didn't mean a thing when it came to matters of life and death, which was exactly the type of situation that Sam was dealing with at that exact moment. If anything his consistent dislike for the Vice President made the entire situation more difficult for Sam to deal with because it was not looking good. The intel they were getting was sketchy at best, and, while they knew there had been no explosions or gunfire heard inside the embassy, that didn't mean that the hostages were still alive. The very lack of intelligence that was coming in was alarming, as was the fact that the terrorists hadn't made any moves to indicate what their goal was—beyond the usual goal of terrorists which is to promote terror.

The pathology of terrorists was something that Sam had studied extensively and he knew more than anyone else on the Senior Staff on what they could expect to come at them, so he had been sent to talk to the Joint Chiefs and find out where the US stood as far as options went. Leo was trying to get more information and the President was on the phone with the Israeli Prime Minister trying to find out if he knew anything that could help. Toby was dealing with the Press Corps, a task he loathed, but he was the only one qualified and the only one without a specific skill set to use to contribute with things at the stage that they were currently at. The task of damage control and worst-case-scenario planning had fallen to Josh, which left Sam concerned for his friend.

Josh and Hoynes didn't get along, that much Sam knew, but they had worked together for a long time and there was a sort of bond between the two men, one that hadn't been broken by Josh abandoning Hoynes to work for the opposition, and Sam was afraid that Josh would make it personal. Some people were energized when things got personal. Sam was at his best when he was being attacked—at least, after the initial fury wore off and he was just pissed off but in full control of his faculties. CJ was amazing when her emotions took over as long as she didn't reach a certain point, and if she did reach that point she was usually good at pulling herself back to where she was at her fighting best. Toby and Josh, however, tended to let other things slide when attacks became personal to them and the last thing they could allow was to let things slide at that moment.

Despite the fact that he knew what he was talking about Sam felt uncomfortable around the Joint Chiefs. The only comfort he got was the knowledge that the President, who was the boss of the Joint Chiefs, had admitted that meeting with them always made him feel like he was back at his father's dinner table. Jed Bartlet was a man that Sam looked up to, aspired to be, and it made Sam feel a lot better knowing that there were some things that even the great President Bartlet got nervous doing.

Sam had never been in the situation room before. Toby and CJ were the ones to take briefings on weapons and whatnot when preparing to tell the public what had happened, relaying the information to Sam after the fact because he had other things to take care of while Toby and CJ were briefed and it wasn't like time was a luxury that any of them could afford in situations that required both Situation Room briefings and public address'. He'd always assumed that it looked like a regular conference room, fully secure but overall unappealing to the eye. It probably had been, at one time. The White House reinvented itself with each presidency, each administration running itself differently from the last, and, presumably, decorating the building differently. Not that the Situation Room was all that decorated. It was more like a high-tech haven that Sam was sure would be like a wet dream to people who could do more than work Word and computer solitaire on their laptops.

"This isn't a protest," Army two-star General Earl Weisseman said, repeating the point he had made half an hour earlier and had continued to utter whenever he didn't like the things that other people were saying. Sam really wanted to tell him to shut up, but he knew that wouldn't do any good so he kept his mouth shut and tried to block the General out until he started saying something other than 'this isn't a protest'.

"We don't know what it is, Earl, that's the problem," Nancy McNally said firmly as she had every other time Weisseman had intoned his repetitive contribution to the meeting. "We have no intel on this. No group is staking claim. No demands have been made. We don't even know if anyone is still alive in the embassy. We can't rule anything out until we have some information."

"We can probably rule out that they want to invite us to a tea party," Marine three-star General James Grace commented. The majority of the room rolled their eyes and groaned.

"Fine, but ruling out the tea party idea doesn't get us any closer to developing a counterattack," one of the civilian advisors whose name Sam hadn't caught pointed out.

The room was silent for a moment before Sam spoke up. "There can't be a counterattack. You don't attack during a hostage situation. You negotiate, you find a peaceful solution, but you don't engage until you absolutely have to. We can't make the first move here. We look like we're going to attack and they set off the bombs. They're not afraid to die. They're suicide bombers. They think this is what they were born to do, what their god wants them to do," Sam said. "We make a move and they take out the hostages, themselves, and anyone else they can because that is what they do. I'm not taking a plan of attack to the President and anyone with half a brain-cell won't either until we've exhausted every other avenue." It was rare that he found himself getting so forceful—the last time he had felt the need to bash some heads in was the whole thing with Ainsley Hayes and the dead flowers that Joyce and Brookline sent her; they had had crossed the line and deserved the full force of Sam Seaborn's anger—but he felt the situation warranted it and he didn't plan on having any regrets.

Fitzwallace and Nancy were the only two in the room who had spent any time with Hoynes—and, if he was perfectly honest with himself Sam had been thinking of the hostage situation in terms of getting the Vice President back alive more than anything else—and no one in the room liked the Texan, his politics too wavering on defence and his stance on the military too hands off for the tastes of the men and women who had pledged their lives to national defence and to the armed forces. Sam knew that everyone in the room was a professional and that none of them wanted John Hoynes dead, but he doubted any of them would be so casual if anyone other than the Vice President was in the situation—it was almost enough to make Sam wish that they hadn't shared that detail with the Joint Chiefs. Knowing individuals who were in the situation only made the process more difficult, and that was the last thing that they needed.

"Sam's right," Fitzwallace said. "Emotional as his response is, he's right." Sam but back a scowl at Fitzwallace's comment. He'd been accused of being too idealistic and emotional many times before but never on the job and never when he was trying to keep the world from falling apart at the seams.

"So we have nothing to do because we have to be reactionary or we'll sign the death warrants of over one hundred and twenty people," Nancy said somewhat reluctantly. Sam knew that she was proactive by nature and he was sure that the entire situation was driving her more than a little crazy. He could sympathize with her on that front. Doing nothing was making him crazy, too.

* * *

John Hoynes was not a man who was easily scared. He knew he wasn't impervious—if anything he was even more aware of his own fragile mortality since becoming the Vice President of the United States—but he had the utmost faith in his Secret Service detail and he was fairly competent at keeping himself under control so as not to exacerbate the situation.

There were one hundred and twenty three innocent people in the room—he was pretty sure that they weren't all _innocent_, but they were innocent in as so much as they didn't have bombs strapped to their chests. Hoynes knew this because he had counted. Twice. He didn't know the names of anyone other than his Chief of Staff, his assistant, and his Secret Service detail, and while part of him wished he knew details about the other hundred and thirteen people in the room, Hoynes knew that it was better that he didn't.

He wasn't particularly emotionally attached to his Secret Service detail, but if any of them were killed he knew he would mourn. His Chief of Staff annoyed him, but he would miss him if anything happened to him. He loved his assistant and he knew he would be lost without her, but considering the fact that she was sitting two inches to his left, he doubted that she would perish without him going along with her, so he refused to think about what it would be like to watch her die and then have to go on with his life.

As he glanced around the room, careful not to move too quickly lest the terrorists find something objectionable in his motions and get trigger-happy, Hoynes tried to figure out what their cause was.

He had always been good with languages and when the first Gulf War broke out he began learning different Middle-Eastern dialects because he wanted to be President and had always been a man who played to his strengths. Greeting dignitaries in their native tongue sometimes went a long way to showing respect and earning a small amount of trust in the first few seconds of a meeting when first impressions were made. Now, though, he was using his talent to gather information, even though he wasn't sure what, if anything, he could do with it once he had it. He knew enough of their language to get the gist of the clipped conversations the ten men he could see and hear were having.

And for the first time in his life, John Hoynes wished he was wrong about something.

* * *

It seemed to Donna that she was the only assistant who had been able to make a speedy return to the White House, though she knew that, logically, she wasn't the only one. No one would be able to tell, however, by the amount of work she was doing.

It had started off normally.

She pulled files and organized the interns, set up multiple phone lines in the Roosevelt Room, made sure that the guards sent up the food she had ordered as soon as it arrived, got interns to deliver the pizzas and sodas, and then she made a few calls to cancel the next day's appointments because she knew that the situation would not end well and that it would not end quickly so the only thing left was for everyone to be ready to do damage control once it did end.

She made sure that the Vice President's wife was taken care of, a task that was more because she had gotten to know Susanna Hoynes on the campaign trail and wanted to make sure she was alright and kept up to date and not so much because it was her job, and she made all the phone calls that Josh wanted her to make.

She rounded up the Communications staff since Cathy and Ginger had gotten stuck in traffic and Bonnie was had her hands full with Toby's schedule and a very confused speechwriting staff, most of whom didn't have clearance to know what was happening.

She checked with Charlie and Mrs. Landingham to see if there was anything that the President needed and she found the file that Margaret had 'hidden' from Leo—in the filing cabinet under it's proper heading in the Moss filing system that had become the White House filing system not long after the assistant pool realized how efficient it was—and delivered it to the Chief of Staff in the Oval Office.

She pretended not to notice that she had noticed that Sam wasn't in the room and she politely asked if there was anything she could do since they were so short staffed at the moment and Josh had already told her what was going on and she wanted to help however she could. The President smiled warmly at her and said that he would call if he needed anything but that, for the moment, the pizza was appreciated, especially since his youngest daughter seemed to be channelling her mother of late when it came to his dietary habits. Leo thanked her for the file and asked her to help Toby out because he was afraid that he would be too much for Carol to handle alone with everything else she had on her plate. Donna briefly wondered if anyone ever thought that something was too much for her to handle with everything else she had on her proverbial plate, but she doubted that anyone did because no one ever sent in reinforcements for her when dealing with Josh—she had never needed them and doubted she ever would—and the only time things were taken off her To-Do list were when Josh declared that she could delegate to the staff because there were other things he needed her focused on.

She found Toby as he was leaving the Press Room. He was muttering something about how all reporters were idiots and how he wanted to blow up the press room. It occurred to Donna that she hadn't turned on the TVs in Operations and that the rest of the screens she had passed had been dark as well, something that she wasn't sure she had ever been witness to before since 'moving in' to the White House.

"Where the hell is everybody?" Toby demanded as Donna fell into step beside him. She could see that he was holding it together by a very fine thread and she really didn't want to witness Toby Ziegler losing control. She had seen it only twice before, after his divorce papers came and the night he had told her that Josh had been shot, and she was terrified that her 'big brother' would become something similar to that broken shell of a man once again.

Donna quickly outlined where the people she knew of were and assured him that Ginger and Cathy would arrive shortly—she wasn't sure if that was the truth but it seemed to calm Toby down slightly. "Do you need anything? Leo wanted me to make sure you're covered," Donna said, glad that Toby had never and would never get angry at her. It seemed that he was physically incapable of doing so, and, while it was strange, given Toby's general disposition, Donna wasn't about to complain.

"I need someone to start working on the Statements," Toby said, the capitol 'S' clear in his voice. The two press releases that were drafted at the beginning of every crisis. _Good news, bad news reports_, Josh had called them once. CJ called them _Answer A_ and _Answer B_. Donna could already see the general outline for both.

_**It is with great joy and relief that I announce that…**_

_**It is with a heavy heart that I must report…**_

"I'll track down Sam," Donna offered.

"No, he's with the Joint Chiefs working on strategy," Toby said, stopping and leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. Donna wondered why Sam was doing that instead of Leo or Josh, but it seemed that it was a perfectly logical thing to Toby so she didn't question it. Toby sighed heavily. "I'll write them," he said reluctantly. "Just… try to get as much information as you can. The more I have to work with the better."

Donna nodded and began to head off towards Operations again but something made her stop and turn around. "Toby?"

"Yeah?" the Communications Director said, his eyes meeting hers.

"Which one do you think you're going to need?" Donna asked softly.

Toby's sigh was answer enough.

* * *

_It's been a while since I updated this and, honestly, I have no excuse other than the fact that I didn't want to post this chapter until I knew how to at least start the next one._

_Manic Penguin_


	6. Chapter 6

_**SINS OF THE FATHER**_

_RATED R_

_FIRST PART OF THE 'HISTORY REPEATS' SERIES_

_SAM/DONNA ROMANCE_

_SPOILERS FOR **'SOMEONE'S GOING TO EMERGENCY, SOMEONE'S GOING TO JAIL'**_

* * *

"There are only so many ways to say it, sir," Nancy McNally said to the President, standing tall and proud in front of the desk in the Oval Office. It took a lot to shake Nancy and, though the situation was had the potential to spin out of control faster than usual—having the Vice President involved guaranteed that—she was confident. Even the niggling doubt she felt about the lack of intelligence coming in on the group that had taken over the embassy didn't show, seasoned professional that she was. "Until the terrorists make a move there is no action that we can take that won't lead to loss of hostages inside the embassy."

"And everyone agrees on this?" Bartlet asked. It was clear that the situation was driving him as crazy as it was everyone else, if not more so.

"No, but the ones who don't agree are inexperienced when it comes to hostage situations and suicide bombers and my recommendation is that you order the Marine guards and any other protection force in the area to hold until the situation changes," Nancy said.

Bartlet chewed on the advice Nancy was giving him. Doing nothing, even for a little while, was like torture, but he didn't know what else to do. "How do you fight an enemy who wants to die?" he asked rhetorically. "So ordered," Bartlet said to Nancy who needed to hear the Presidential order before she could officially do anything. "Charlie!" he called. A moment later Charlie appeared in the doorway, ready as ever to serve at the pleasure of the President. "Get the senior staff in here."

"CJ went home," Charlie said as Nancy exited the room.

That, normally, wouldn't be strange. CJ had called a full lid four hours earlier, it was late, and the President was sure that CJ had put in a full day of work before taking off. But he knew that everyone had been called in, that his Senior Staff was supposed to be there for damage control—because, really, there wasn't much else that they could do—and not having the face of the Administration there was definitely out of the ordinary. "Why the hell would she do something like that?" Bartlet grumbled.

"According to Sam, who sent her home, she was not fit to face the press, especially during a situation like this," Charlie said tactfully. Frowning in confusion, Bartlet made a motion for his bodyman to elaborate, which he did, though reluctantly. "She was drunk, sir. I'm not entirely sure what is in a Grasshopper, but whatever is in those things knocked CJ for a loop."

"What the hell is a Grasshopper?" Bartlet asked.

Charlie shrugged. "All I know is that it's green, looks like a wheat grass shake, and the wait-staff at Georgetowne Station usually refuse to order them for her."

Rolling his eyes, Bartlet waved Charlie out of the office to round up the remains of his Senior Staff. Though he was something of a busybody, Bartlet was learning that whenever he tried to find something out about the lives of his staffers he ended up alternatively confused, amused, and infuriated, all things that took up more time than he had to spare at that moment.

While he waited for Leo, Josh, Sam, and Toby to arrive, Bartlet reread the slim file that Nancy had left with him. There wasn't much in there, most of the scant number of pages showing nothing more thrilling than basic research that anyone could do on the internet in a few minutes, certainly not anything like what he was accustomed to coming out of the Situation Room. Travel outline for Hoynes' trip, statistics on the building itself, a few details on the area, and a brief summery of the Secret Service protection that had been added to the Vice President's detail while he was travelling.

Josh was the first to arrive, followed almost immediately by Sam and Toby. Leo was the last to appear, his suit rumpled in a way that Bartlet hadn't seen it since the days of booze and pills and Leo passing out on a couch heedless of his Savant Row suit that was being tortured by its wearer. There were no jokes, no banter, and no CJ; though Bartlet supposed that the last wasn't all that odd seeing as many Oval Office meetings didn't include the Press Secretary, whether for reasons of job description or maintaining her level of deniability. He wondered how whoever was going to stand behind the podium in CJ's place would explain the fact that she wasn't there during what amounted to a major crisis. Then, as quickly as the thought had come to Bartlet's mind, it vanished because he had long ago stopped worrying about things like that; that was why he had a staff, after all.

"The consensus in the Sit Room is that we hold back, quash any press leaks, and wait for them to make the first move. I don't like it, but it's the right thing to do at this moment so that's what we're going to do," Bartlet said without preamble. "Sam, you sat with them," he said, nodding his head in the general direction of the Situation Room. "Is there anything Nancy didn't tell me that I should know?"

Feeling a little like he was being asked to rat out the kid who beat up the first graders at recess—a role he had been stuck with far too often in the early years of grade school, the teachers feeling that he was popular enough to not have to worry about the playground equivalent to retribution and unobtrusive enough that any bullies wouldn't notice the lanky kid who was earnest in every sense of the word and who, after the bully had moved on to other scared little kids, had been known to make sure that the target had enough for milk or juice at lunch to go with their peanut-butter and jelly sandwich and carrot sticks or whatever they had in their little cubby hole in the coat room inside their classroom door—Sam shifted his weight awkwardly before finally shrugging.

"They're frustrated, sir. The instinct for most of them was to go in with some kind of stealth… military, CIA… wetworks kind of thing, I guess, but the CIA director refused to act in the situation without a direct order from this office," Sam said, his eyes flitting from the Resolute desk to the seal on the floor before turning to the President himself.

"And you agree?" Leo asked.

Sam shrugged again. "I have problems with wetworks operations, morally, but if we were to make a move it would have to be in that vein anyway. As far as waiting goes, until these people make a hostile move we can't risk going in and escalating this thing."

"Until they make a hostile move? They took the building hostage, Sam! They have bombs and guns and it's no skin off their noses if they don't make it out of there alive because they'll be martyrs to their cause and Allah will reward them generously with paradise and virgins! I'd say they passed hostile the minute they walked into the place," Josh argued.

"Maybe so, but there's no way to win against these people by using force," Sam reasoned. "It'll just give them what they want—death in the name of their cause. The worst case scenario here is escalation."

Josh looked at his friend. "And the best case?"

Biting the inside of his lip, Sam hesitated. "Ideally the best case scenario is a peaceful negotiation. Rationally this is a centuries old battle and a peaceful solution isn't going to happen in the next few hours."

"So the realistic best case scenario is that we take them out before they take out the people in the embassy?" Toby asked. Sam nodded gravely.

Josh closed his eyes tightly. "How long are we going to just let our people sit there with guns or bombs or god knows what hanging over their heads?"

"Good question," Bartlet said, looking at Leo who shrugged and remained silent.

Sighing heavily, Toby pulled a notebook out of his breast pocket and flipped to the last page with writing on it. Two sentence fragments, the start of two separate statements, one which would never be heard, the other that would play in sound bites for days, possibly weeks, to come after the particular portion of their collective hero's trial was complete.

_It is with great joy and relief that I announce that…_

_It is with a heavy heart that I must report…_

* * *

Since the West Wing had more or less returned to the usual day-time level of staff, Donna had made sure that her desk was covered before slipping away to the Residence. She knew that if there was a problem Zoey would call, and with the increased Secret Service protection there was little reason to worry, but Donna still wanted to check on Meredith, make sure that she was alright being in a strange city in a strange building with men and women with guns around most every corner. Donna doubted that her presence would offer much comfort to the little girl, having known her only a scant hour or so longer than she had known her impromptu babysitter, Zoey, but Donna was feeling particularly useless sitting at her desk not doing much of anything because there was little left to do.

The agent who had taken over on Zoey's detail when Gina rotated out at Ron Butterfield's insistence—Roslyn had weighed heavy on the young agent and Ron was afraid that Gina would begin to doubt herself—smiled at Donna and told her to go on in, that Zoey and Meredith were watching a movie when she'd come on duty ten minutes earlier, and commented on how sweet the little girl was and how she had hidden behind a chair until Zoey took her hand and brought her out into the middle of the room to introduce them.

Donna tapped on the door as she slipped into the room. It was dark save the flickering the light from the large television. "Hey," the blonde whispered as she crept over to the couch where Zoey had stretched out. Meredith was sitting on the floor with a bowl of popcorn in her lap. "How's it going?" she asked, her voice soft enough to avoid interrupting the movie.

"Good," Zoey smiled. "Sam's got a pretty cool niece here."

"Yeah, he does," Donna grinned. "Can I talk to you for a second?" she asked, motioning toward the door.

Zoey nodded and got up, following Donna into the hall and pulling the door closed so that Meredith wouldn't hear what she had to say. "What's up?" Zoey asked.

"This thing… the thing that's going on," Donna said, unsure of how much the President would want his youngest daughter to know, "is going to last all night, maybe longer. I don't know if she has any pyjamas or anything in her backpack."

"I'll check. If she doesn't I'm sure there's something around here she can wear. A big tee shirt or something," Zoey said. She looked down at her hands. "What's going on, Donna? Why has the Secret Service presence doubled in the last two hours?"

"I… I can't tell you that. Not because of anything… I just… it should be your parents who tell you what's going on," Donna hedged.

"Donna, just tell me," Zoey pled.

Sighing heavily, Donna rubbed her hands over her face. "I'm sorry, Zoey. I can't. It's not my place," Donna apologized.

"Okay," Zoey said, knowing she wasn't going to get any information out of Donna if she wasn't willing to share. "If he has a free minute Sam should come up and say goodnight."

"I'll try to catch him," Donna nodded. "What are you watching?" she asked when she heard Meredith let out a long, loud, giggling laugh.

Zoey shrugged. "One of dad's old comedies. She probably doesn't get half the jokes, but there's a lot of physical comedy and she seems to be enjoying it."

"Okay. I should get back before Josh gets out of the Oval and starts bellowing," Donna said, checking her watch and realizing that she had been gone for a little longer than she had planned.

* * *

The Senior Staff was filing out of the Oval Office when Nancy rushed in without pausing when Charlie rose to his feet to tell the President that she was there. "I'm sorry sir," Nancy said, slightly out of breath. "I have some news."

* * *

_I realize it's been an insanely long time since I updated but writers block is not something I have learned how to master yet._

_M_


	7. Chapter 7

_**SINS OF THE FATHER**_

_RATED R_

FIRST PART OF THE 'HISTORY REPEATS' SERIES

_SAM/DONNA ROMANCE_

_SPOILERS FOR _'SOMEONE'S GOING TO EMERGENCY, SOMEONE'S GOING TO JAIL'

* * *

It surprised them both, though it felt like the most normal thing in the world. 

He'd wanted to make sure she got to her apartment safely, and he had insisted that she let him walk her to her door. She hadn't protested—not because she wanted protection but because she knew that things like walking her to her door were reflexes for Sam Seaborn and, though she wouldn't admit it, she loved the gentleman-esk traits that were so completely 'Sam' that she couldn't imagine him doing anything else.

Her keys had decided that it was a good time to play hide-and-seek within the at-capacity confines of her briefcase making Donna feel foolish and more than a little glad that Sam had insisted upon walking her to her door. Sam had tried to help her, making things predictably worse, and when they both knelt to gather up Donna's belongings from the cold floor in her hallway he found himself staring into twin pools of the palest blue he'd seen outside of a Southern Californian sky. One of his hands came up and cupped her cheek for a moment before sliding back to tangle into her hair.

"Sam…" Donna whispered, her fingers wrapping around the folds of his suit jacket. It had been a long time since she had been so close to an attractive man who had that look in his eyes. That look that told her that he was burning with something for her that he didn't quite understand but wanted to explore, if she was willing. It had been a long time since she had felt that same burning within herself. She didn't think she had ever felt it for someone who felt it for her in return. "Sam…" she whispered again as he took a small step forward, just enough to trap her body between his and the wall beside her door. He was warm and soft and hard and so utterly _Sam_ that nothing registered except for where their bodies touched and the fact that, close as they were, she had yet to feel his supple lips over her own.

"If you want me to stop tell me now," Sam said, his eyes locked on hers, "because once I kiss you I don't know if I'll be able to stop."

Donna ignored the cliché because the honesty that she saw in his eyes and the genuine emotion she heard in his voice made it seem as if she was the first woman to ever hear those words.

Unable to find the right words to say in return—something she idly noted would be a major downside to being with a speechwriter who was as good as Sam—Donna leaned forward and pressed her lips to Sam's, softly like all good first kisses.

At least at first.

* * *

_FLASHBACK_

_Nancy waited for the door to buzz before pushing her way through into the Situation Room. She was surprised to find that the room was empty save one Navy three-star Admiral who was sitting with his head down on the table, his glasses thrown carelessly to his left._

"_Fitz?" Nancy said hesitantly. She couldn't, for the life of her, figure out why Fitzwallace was the only person in the room when only twenty minutes earlier the room had been as busy as ever._

_Lifting his head slowly as if it suddenly weighed fifty times what he was used to, Fitzwallace looked at Nancy, his eyes finding hers. Immediately she knew why the room was empty. "They blew the embassy up?" she asked, her voice weak._

"_No," Fitzwallace said. "But one of them recognized Hoynes."_

_Steeling herself against what she had to ask next, Nancy took a deep breath. "How bad?"_

"_It's bad," Fitzwallace admitted._

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

"What are we doing?" Donna asked as Sam pulled her earlobe between his lips. 

"If you have to ask I'm doing something wrong," Sam replied, his voice low and husky as it vibrated against the shell of her ear seductively.

"Sam, stop. Think," Donna said, pushing him away a little.

"Donna, you alright?" a paunchy middle-aged man asked while shooting a distrustful glance at Sam.

Donna blushed as Sam took a full step back and sighed heavily in defeat. "I'm fine, Mr. Myers. Really. Thanks for asking," she said, locating her keys and opening her apartment door. "Sam, c'mon," she urged, wrapping her fingers around his wrist and tugging gently. "Have a good evening, Mr. Myers," she called before closing the door and locking it. "He… looks out for me," she explained lamely.

"With some of the men you attract I'm glad there's someone looking out for you," Sam said honestly.

"What does that say about you?" Donna asked while hanging up her coat. "I mean, obviously I appeal to you in some way, as I think the post-pubescent hickey on my neck that will require some fancy make-up work in the morning will attest to, but since everyone from my boss to my friends to the guy down the hall seem to believe that I attract nothing but losers and 'local gomers', what does that say about you?"

Sam hung his head. "I deserved that."

"Damn right you did," Donna said as she stepped out of her shoes and flexed her toes into the plush carpeting.

"I just meant that you seem to go out with a lot of guys who are no good for you, and I hate seeing you hurt, which inevitably happens when you get into a relationship… and I'm just saying that I'm glad that there's someone closer to home who is looking out for you," Sam said, looking down at his shoes like they were the most interesting thing in the world. "And I don't know what all that says about me, but I do know that I like you as more than just a friend and I'm attracted to you in ways that are driving me crazy and… I really hope that you have feelings for me as well but if all this just makes you uncomfortable I'll leave now and we'll never talk about this again."

_

* * *

_

_FLASHBACK_

_After finding out as much as Fitz could tell her, Nancy left the Situation Room and half-ran back to the Oval Office. She reached the outer office just as the Senior Staff, minus CJ, was leaving, though they all followed her back in when she pushed past them, ignoring all the protocols that told her that bursting into the Oval Office was insulting, not to mention not a good idea._

"_I'm sorry sir," Nancy said, slightly out of breath. "I have some news." There was a brief pause, and then she reluctantly added, "It's not good."_

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

Donna walked over to Sam and put her hand on his arm, stopping him before he could turn to the door. She gently lifted his chin until his eyes met hers, her fingers lingering on his lightly stubbled skin. "I'm not going to lie to you, Sam, 'cause you and I don't do that. This all makes me a little uncomfortable. You are one of my best friends and the thought of messing that up terrifies me… but there's this other part of me… this part, right here," she said, grasping his hand and bringing it up to her heart, "that keeps telling me that it would be worth the risk. That being with you would be worth any trouble it causes us… though I do realize that you would bear the brunt of any media trouble we bring about." 

"You would be the one who gets hurt when it comes to work, though," Sam pointed out.

"I realize that too. And, even though I don't think it will come to that, I know that I will be able to find work elsewhere and still make a difference. I might even be able to affect change that I can't even dream about where I am now," Donna said. "But I don't want to think like that because thinking worst case scenario before we even have dinner together is no way to go into a…"

"Relationship?" Sam offered when Donna struggled to find the right word. "That's what we're talking about, right? A relationship, something with a future. Because I'm not interested in a fling, not with you, Donna. If we do this, we do this right."

"Agreed," Donna said, incredibly relieved that Sam was the one to say it first. She smirked. "I can't believe we're having this conversation in my doorway." Sam smiled. "Why don't we go into the living room… sit down to talk this out?" Donna suggested.

"Sounds like a good idea," Sam said. He took off his jacket and hung it up with Donna's before following her into the small but cozy living room.

* * *

_FLASHBACK_

_Bartlet put his hands on his desk for support. He felt like sinking down into his chair, but decided not to, feeling that it would be overly dramatic. Nodding his head, Bartlet tried to brace himself for whatever Nancy had to say. "What is it, Nancy?" he asked._

"_From what we have found out in the last few minutes it seems that one of the terrorists recognized the Vice President…" Nancy said. "After the terrorist made his move the Secret Service neutralized the threat and the building was cleared within a minute. The bomb squad is in there now."_

"_And John?" Bartlet asked._

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

Sam sat down next to Donna, his hand finding hers and tangling their fingers together, not gripping her tightly, just forming a connection, one that they both needed after the evening they had had. 

"I don't know where to start," he confessed.

Donna smiled. "Me either," she admitted. "At least we're on even footing in that way," Donna added nervously. They shared a smile and Donna blushed, ducking her head shyly for a moment before looking up and meeting Sam's eyes. "I… I like you, Sam. And as much as I treasure our friendship… I think that we have something going on that extends beyond friendship."

_

* * *

FLASHBACK _

"_There were paramedics on site. They got to the Vice President as soon as the immediate threat was neutralized," Nancy said, her tone even and unemotional._

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

"I agree," Sam said, glad that Donna had taken the first step. "There is definitely more here than friendship." 

"There are some things that we need to talk about before we explore this more-than-friendship thing we have going on," Donna said seriously.

_

* * *

FLASHBACK _

"_They are enroute to the nearest hospital. Captain James Kline, United States Navy, will be the trauma surgeon; he's scrubbing in as we speak," Nancy said._

"_Trauma surgeon?" Leo asked, his voice a paler twin of it's usual confidence boisterousness._

_Nancy nodded._

"_What kind of trauma are we talking about here?" Toby asked, his voice rough._

_With a heavy sigh Nancy's eyes flitted to everyone in the room, resting on Josh and the President longer than anyone else._

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

"I don't want to, but I have to bring it up," Donna said. 

"Ainsley?" Sam asked with a sigh.

"All signs point to the two of you tangoing half-naked one foot in the nearest bedroom after one of those debates you two are so good at," Donna said.

"Tangoing half-naked one foot in the nearest bedroom?" Sam echoed, smiling teasingly.

Donna narrowed her eyes at him. "Shut up," she said. "You know what I mean. And before you and I start anything I need to know for sure that I'm the one that you want to be with; that you won't be thinking about Ainsley—or anyone else—when we're together."

Sam raised their joined hands, brushing his lips against her fingers so softly that Donna was almost convinced she had imagined it.

"Ainsley is a friend. We debate, we argue, we hang out from time to time. We are, in no way, tangoing half-naked anywhere. And you have to believe that when you are around I have a hard time remembering that there are other people in the world, let alone my life," Sam said. Donna shook her head, ready to argue with Sam on his assurances. "No, I'm serious. There have been meetings in the Oval Office that I completely miss because you've poked your head in the room. I actually supported making Big Block of Cheese Day every two weeks instead of once a month."

Upon hearing that—other than Toby, who hated Leo's Cheese days with the fire of a nova, Sam was the biggest opposition to Leo's pet office project—Donna laughed, erasing the tension that they were both feeling.

* * *

_FLASHBACK_

"_They shot him, didn't they?" Sam said._

_Nodding, Nancy glanced at the hastily scribbled note in her hand. "The Vice President was shot once in the right shoulder, once in the left upper thigh, and he was grazed on the right side. The last shot is not a problem; it's just a flesh wound. All he'll need for that is a thorough cleaning, a few stitches, maybe a tetanus booster. It's the other two that are troubling. The shot to the shoulder went right through, a clean exit visible. The shot to his leg, though, only has an entry. No exit wound."_

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

"Since you brought up Ainsley, I have to go there," Sam said. 

"Sam, really, I would think that you of all people would know that there is not going to be anything between me and Josh," Donna said, frustrated.

"Why, first of all, would I, of all people, know that? And also I don't see how you can sit there denying the… thing… between the two of you," Sam said, equally frustrated, though for completely different reasons.

"You should know better than anyone because you know me, you know Josh, and you know that he still thinks of me as the idiot farm-girl who got played by a sleazy med student and who has an unwavering desire to be coupled up that will always and forever erase any hint of self worth that I may have," Donna said bitterly. Sam frowned. "That, by the way, is also how I can sit here and deny that there is a _thing _between Josh and myself."

"Josh doesn't think that," Sam said, feeling the need to defend his friend.

Donna pulled her hand away from Sam's, crossing her arms across her chest in a defensive posture. "Then why did he tell me that he did?"

Sam didn't have an answer for that.

* * *

_FLASHBACK_

"_It doesn't look good, sir," Nancy said, her eyes unwavering in their contact with the President's._

_Bartlet nodded. "Okay," he said slowly, unsure of what to do next. He looked around the room and quickly realized that he wasn't the only one._

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

_And that was Chapter 7. The flashbacks will continue in the next chapter, but I'm pretty sure that will be the last of them for a while. Hopefully no one had a problem putting everything in place._

_M_


	8. Chapter 8

_**SINS OF THE FATHER**_

_RATED R_

FIRST PART OF THE 'HISTORY REPEATS' SERIES

_SAM/DONNA ROMANCE_

_SPOILERS FOR _'SOMEONE'S GOING TO EMERGENCY, SOMEONE'S GOING TO JAIL'

* * *

Struggling to reconcile his best friend with the things that Donna said Josh had said about her—and, as Donna wasn't apt to lie, he had no reason not to believe that she was being anything but truthful—Sam longed for an impartial third party to help them get past the issue of Josh Lyman.

Then he realized that ninety percent of the people who knew who they were thought that Josh and Donna getting together was a foregone conclusion and his desire for a third party vanished because, really, he knew he would have enough problems without more people telling Donna that she belonged with Josh Lyman, not Sam Seaborn.

"When… when did he say that?" Sam asked lamely.

"When you were on the trip to Portland," Donna replied. Sam frowned. There had been a lot of trips to the west coast, including several trips to Portland, in the past few months. "With the education speech?" Donna tried. "I was trying to explain that I was going out, that I had a date, and he started ranting about my lack of self and self worth."

Frowning Sam tried to remember what had been happening at the time. He could recall being absolutely mortified that he froze up on the speck. He could remember Toby talking about Josh advising the President to pocket veto the Marriage Recognition Act. He had a dim recollection of CJ wearing a baseball cap and Danny Concannon giving her a hard time, though that last memory could have been from any day in the last few years. Sam could also remember Josh walking on egg shells around Donna for a few days before he gave up on that tactic and went back to his usual insane requests—Sam didn't understand why Josh asked Donna to do the things he did, but what boggled his mind was that, a lot of the time, Donna did whatever crazy thing Josh wanted her to do; but that concern was for another time, when whatever future he might have with Donna wasn't hanging in the balance.

The last thing that flashed through Sam's memory was Josh in the Oval Office only a scant four hours earlier, deteriorating emotionally, mentally, and physically, right before the eyes of the President and his senior advisors.

And suddenly it all made sense to Sam.

He just wished that it didn't.

* * *

_FLASHBACK_

_After Nancy left, returning to the Situation Room to wait for updates and, probably, to start formulating retaliatory action plans, the only sound in the Oval Office was the steady ticking of the clock. Finally it was Toby who spoke first, breaking the silence with the Zeigler brand of logic and political sensibility that made him such a good politician and a great Communications Director. "There is nothing we can do for the Vice President from here. Even if we were in Tel Aviv there would be nothing that we could do for him."_

_Leo nodded. "The next few hours are going to be a balancing act for us and we can't split our focus," he agreed. "Lock this place down. No calls in or out."_

"_There's a media blackout in Tel Aviv for the duration of Hoynes' trip but we've got maybe two hours before someone there calls a friend who tells someone else who calls CNN and the next thing we know we're in the middle of a whole new thing," Sam said._

_Josh sank down into one of the chairs, his head falling into his shaking hands. Bartlet sought out Leo and, after establishing eye contact with his Chief of Staff, the President mouthed 'Donna' and jerked his head at Josh who, they were all far too aware, was still struggling with the shooting and it's aftermath. Leo nodded and hurried to the outer office, asking Mrs Landingham to get Donna. To her credit Mrs Landingham didn't question Leo's request, though Leo was sure that the perceptive woman had noticed Josh's pain and his attempts to mask it._

_Leo had barely made it back to his place beside the President when Donna rushed in, panic face firmly in place._

"_Joshua," she whispered as she knelt by his side. "Josh, breathe for me, okay? Like we used to," she said, immediately falling into her role as Josh's caretaker and guardian angel. Her left hand moved up, tangling her fingers in the curls at the base of his skull, while her right hand rested over his heart._

"_Breathe with me, Josh. Ready? Okay. Breathe in… two… three. Now out… two… three," Donna instructed calmly, smiling briefly when Josh did as he was told. She repeated her instructions twice more before praising him, murmuring, "Good, Josh. That's really good. Keep going."_

_Josh continued doing the slow, deep breathing exercises that one of his doctors—no one could really remember which one, possibly the respirologist, or maybe it was one of the psychologists that Donna had talked to before taking Josh home—had suggested, moving one hand from his face to clutch at Donna's right wrist, clinging to the stable, claming influence that she provided him. He knew what she was going to tell him to do next, and as foolish as it made him feel, he always felt better doing it when he was holding Donna in some way._

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

Sighing, Donna pulled her legs up under her body on the couch. "I know Josh was going through some stuff, that he still is and probably will be for the rest of his life," she allowed. "But that doesn't change the fact that he said it. The fact that he said it, though, does cement the fact that he thought it."

"If it bothers you then you should talk to Josh about it," Sam said.

Donna shook her head. "Josh has enough going on without his assistant acting all shrill and whiny because he hurt her feelings."

"You are neither shrill nor whiny, Donna, and you have a legitimate complaint here," Sam insisted.

"Maybe," Donna allowed. "But that's not the point of this conversation. I though we were trying to figure out if you and me would work at a higher romantic level, not analyse what Josh says and does."

Sam nodded, though he was determined to talk to Josh even if Donna wouldn't. Josh was his best friend, after all, and someone needed to let Josh know how deeply he affected those around him.

_

* * *

FLASHBACK_

"_Remember what Dr Kline said to do if the episode starts to take over?" Donna said gently, oblivious to the other six people in the room, all of whom were watching the pair. Donna had always kicked everyone out when she caught sight of an episode—though she didn't know what they were when they first started happening—and no one had seen them go through their ritual calming before._

"_Happy… place…" Josh bit out, pained._

_Smiling proudly—Josh didn't always remember what to do next—Donna nodded slightly. "That's right, Josh. Your happy place. Find it for me," she said, glad that Josh wasn't fighting the instruction. Usually he did based solely on the fact that he felt like an idiot when he tried to find a mental happy place. "Are you there yet?"_

"_A—almost," Josh managed._

"_Okay. Keep going. Tell me when you're all the way there," Donna said tenderly._

_Josh's head jerked up and down twice before he went back to concentrating. The room was silent for a minute until Josh's voice broke through the oppressive sound vacuum. "Talk," he half requested, half ordered._

"_About what?" Donna asked._

"_Anything," Josh said. He frowned, squeezing his eyes tightly before deciding. "Cats. Tell me about the cats."_

"_You want me to tell you about the cats?" Donna smiled._

"_Haven't… seen them," Josh said slowly. "Not… allowed to drink… anymore," he added._

_Nodding seriously, Donna started rambling about her roommate's cats. As Donna talked Bartlet, Leo, Toby, Sam, Charlie, and Mrs Landingham watched and listened, amazed at how they could actually see Josh visibly calming and relaxing._

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

"I still worry… what Josh says and does affects you in a lot of ways," Sam said.

"Maybe," Donna nodded. "But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. We work together, we work long hours in close quarters, and, on top of that, Josh is my best friend, or, at least, one of my best friends. He affects me because of that, just like he affects you and Toby and CJ and Leo and everyone else."

Sam nodded. "I get that. But… sometimes it seems that he needs you more than I do. And… I worry that maybe you'll want to be with someone who needs you."

"I've done that, Sam. I've been the girl that a guy stays with because he needs to be taken care of. Not that I'm comparing Josh to Patrick, because they are really nothing alike, especially in practice, but… Patrick used me. He used me to pay for his schooling and he used me to help him study and he used me to cook and clean and lie quietly on my back and fake orgasms every night that he deigned to actually come home. He used me because I have blonde hair and long legs and a collection of little black dresses that came together to make him look good when he needed to act like a power-broker, and after he gave me an engagement ring I only gained in value because he could give off the illusion of maturity and ability to settle down to the people he was essentially auditioning for.

"I realize that Josh would never use me the way that Patrick did. Josh is, fundamentally, a good man. But he still uses me, every day. When he gets me to work until two or three in the morning several times a week, sometimes for no reason whatsoever. When he sabotages my attempts at getting a life outside the White House. When he… when he does the things that he does… he uses me. And I let him, because I love the work I'm doing and I like feeling like I'm making some kind of a difference in the world and I want to help Josh do his job the best way he can because god knows there's enough things and people conspiring to work against us. But Josh uses me, Sam, and that is why nothing will ever come of whatever might be between Josh and me."

* * *

_FLASHBACK__Josh had calmed down again and was fighting Donna as she tried to make him take the anti-anxiety pills that he was supposed to take after an episode to ensure that he didn't suffer a string of episodes like he had at Christmas. _

_"They make me different, Donna," Josh whined, his mind not processing that there were other people in the room, let alone that he was in the Oval Office._

"_Josh, I'm putting my foot down. Either you take the pills or you go home and rest. The foot is down and there will be no arguments," Donna said, her tone of voice firm and only a shade calmer than when she originally outlined THE RULES to everyone._

_"But—" Josh started._

_"Joshua, the foot has spoken," Donna said, her voice as hard as granite. The President smiled and Leo beamed with pride. No one in the room wanted to think about what life would be like without Donna around to handle Josh. _

_Scowling, Josh put his hand out for the pills. He took them with some water and then took the package of saltines that Donna was holding out, opening the package of crackers and eating both without further complaint._

"_I know we weren't sure about her at first, Josh, but I can see why you fought back," the President said warmly. "Donna, don't ever leave."_

_Donna beamed. "I don't plan to, sir," she said, standing up and facing Bartlet. Her smiled faded quickly, though, as she remembered that there was something going on and that she still didn't know what it was. "If you don't mind my asking, sir, what was being discussed that caused this?" she asked, glancing over at Josh who was sitting silently with his eyes closed, waiting for the pills to kick in._

_Bartlet looked at Leo who nodded, taking the task of telling Donna about Hoynes. "Vice President Hoynes was shot," Leo said, not couching his words because he had never been one to patronize those around him._

_Donna's tiny gasp of shock did little to comfort anyone in the room._

_It took Donna a minute to restore her professional face, by when she did she put all her focus into it, as always. "What can I do?" she asked._

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

Sam sat quietly for a minute before something flashed across his eyes. "He gave you an engagement ring?"

"Patrick did, yes," Donna nodded. "We were engaged, Sam. The ring is generally part of the package. Although, fidelity is usually part of the package, too, and Patrick wasn't exactly up on that concept, so I can see where the surprise comes in."

"Please tell me that you pawned it to pay your way to New Hampshire," Sam said.

Donna shook her head. "No, I just put it in my jewellery box," she said. Sam shot her a look that was half confusion and half pained, which led to Donna explaining her action. "He didn't buy it, Sam. He went to my mother and got my grandmother's engagement ring from her. I thought it was the absolute sweetest gesture when he gave it to me. My grandmother was an amazing woman, Sam. I idolized her. She was the one who encouraged me to follow my heart because, even if I ended up getting hurt, I would never have to look back on my life regretting the road not taken."

"She sounds like a wonderful role model," Sam said.

"She was," Donna beamed. "She was like the typical little old lady, all Earl Grey tea and knitting and snow-white curls and embarrassing childhood stories one minute, and the next she would be challenging people in the park to footraces and fighting with the people who wouldn't let a woman her age go skydiving and driving my grandpa's 1970 Cuda at 125 miles per hour through Madison because there was a traffic cop that she thought was hot."

"So that's why you drive like the lost Andretti," Sam teased, earning him a swift swat to the arm. "Sorry," he smiled. "Tell me more about your grandmother."

"I revered my grandmother; she was always there for me. When I graduated from high school she and I went to Ireland together, just the two of us. When most of my friends were partying and basking in the present, I was in Ireland with my grandmother visiting the place where she was born and the house that she grew up in and meeting the people she had grown up with and becoming familiar with my past, with history that would never make the books but was pivotal in making my grandmother who she was. The day that I moved into the dorms she took a nap and never work up," Donna said. "When Patrick gave me her ring I thought… I don't know what I thought. I guess I thought that he had listened to me somewhere along the way, that he knew how much she meant to me, how much having her ring would mean to me. The truth was, though, that he was just too cheap to buy me a ring himself."

* * *

_FLASHBACK_

"_What are the staff levels like right now?" Leo asked._

"_About eighty percent," Donna replied._

_Leo nodded thoughtfully. "Alright. We need you to go get CJ back. Coffee, juice, bread… sober her up as best you can. We're going to need to announce tonight and… well…" Leo trailed off, unsure of how to word what he needed to say._

"_Using the Deputy Press Secretary or Sam or Toby makes it less powerful than if CJ does it and that isn't the right message to send on this," Donna nodded, earning her another smile of pride from Leo. Donna looked over at Sam. "Can I borrow your car?" she asked sweetly._

"_Why not take Josh's?" Sam frowned even as he dug his keys out of his pocket._

"_I don't know how to drive stick," Donna explained. Sam nodded and tossed her his keys. "Thanks." She looked over at Josh, then back to Sam who nodded, letting her know that Josh would be taken care of until she got back. Relieved, Donna looked to the President who nodded and then Donna took off. Charlie and Mrs Landingham followed her out, going back to their desks to allow the Senior Staff prepare for what was coming next._

"_When did she get so smart?" Bartlet asked._

"_Good teacher," Josh mumbled, his voice hazy with exhaustion and the beginnings of his medicated stupor._

END FLASHBACK

* * *

"Doesn't it bother you that I don't have a degree?" Donna asked.

Sam frowned. Even for Donna that was out of the blue. "No. Why would you think that it would?"

"Because Lisa has a Masters and Mallory is a teacher and Ainsley and Laurie are both lawyers," Donna said.

"Why do they matter?" he asked.

"Because they are the women you go for. You go for the smart, witty, educated, privileged, impressively credentialed, combative women."

Pulling Donna into his arms, Sam held on tight, curling his body around hers on the narrow couch. "First of all I don't rate background when I find myself attracted to a woman. Second, you are smart, you are witty, and just because you didn't come away from college with a degree doesn't mean that you are not educated or credentialed. You work thirty feet from the Oval Office, Donna, and for several months you were de facto Deputy Chief of Staff, which, though I'll deny it if Josh were to ever find out I said this, is not an easy job. And as for the combative thing… I'm not entirely sure what that's about, though you're right. The women I have gone for in the past have been combative, to varying degrees. They kept me on my toes, that's for sure. But you do that, too, in much more pleasant ways."

Donna took a deep breath. "Sometimes… sometimes I feel like I'm being naïve, that I'm going to wake up one morning and find out that working in the White House has all been a dream, that the past few years have just been an elaborate cosmic joke."

"One hell of an elaborate joke," Sam muttered. Donna giggled softly. "No, seriously," Sam continued, enjoying the sound of Donna's laughter and the way her body felt against his as she let out the tiny sound that he immediately associated with peace and joy. "Think about the massive conspiracy… nation-wide… global… maybe even a universal conspiracy aimed at you. Everyone from the leaders of every country in the world to the ferrets—because apparently there are ferrets that people have the right and the privilege to visit—in Big Sky National Park have come together to play a joke on a girl from Madison, Wisconsin."

"Okay, when you say it that way it sounds like I have some kind of god complex the size of Josh's ego," Donna admitted. "But regardless of that, I still feel that someone is going to come along one day and pull the rug out from under me and I'll be back in Madison working four jobs while Patrick sleeps his way through the women in Madison and all the neighbouring counties."

Sam pressed his lips to her temple for a long moment before speaking again.

"When I first met you all I saw was this girl who was wearing Josh's ID around her neck and who was alternately take-charge and meek as a mouse. I saw you turn Josh's disaster area of an office into a finely oiled machine and your influence was spreading to the rest of the office when one day you just weren't there anymore. I remember thinking that it was going to be hell working with Josh again because, as much as I love him, we have never been able to work together before and it wasn't until you appeared that I could really stand to be around him in an office setting. I underestimated how bad it was going to be, by the way, and we were all about two days away from changing the campaign route to swing through Madison to kidnap you back when you came back on your own. Only you weren't shy anymore; you stood up to Toby and Leo and Mandy when you had to, you adapted Mrs Landingham's systems and made the entire campaign run smoother, and you kept Josh sane and organized which is, in and of itself, a feat worthy of sainthood. When we won, though, you retreated again, which I still don't understand. Why did you pull away from everyone after the election?"

"Because Josh sent me with the people who were going around closing down the campaign headquarters and everyone knew that the people who were doing that were being let go once they were done. I'm not good at goodbyes—that's why I didn't tell anyone when I left the first time. It's easier to make a clean break, and I thought that if I stopped being friendly with you and CJ and Josh and Toby and everyone it wouldn't hurt as much when I was back in Madison spritzing people with Chanel No 5," Donna explained. "Josh didn't ask me to come with him until January fourth, and he didn't even really ask me, he just asked if I had a dress and all my 'girly things' for the Inaugural Balls. Even when he asked me that I didn't think he was offering me a job. I thought… I don't know… I worked on the campaign and he was being a nice guy by inviting me to one of the balls. But then he started calling me to bounce ideas around and, after almost a week, I asked him what was going on. He told me that he needed someone to act as a sounding board for ideas of domestic legislation and he'd tried working with other people because I was still travelling around and, while he wasn't going to argue with Leo on where I should be, he still needed me to do my job as his assistant. I don't think he ever realized that he never actually hired me. At all. I mean, I walked in one day and started working for him, and when I came back after my temporary insanity he said there was a pile of stuff on the desk and then after the election he just kept giving me things to do."

"That sounds like Josh," Sam said, rolling his eyes. "To be fair, though, there were a lot of conversations about who would be staying on after the Transition and we all assumed that you would be coming with us to the White House. There was never any question. You were going to be Josh's better, saner, organized, personable half. Anything else would be like the President not bringing Mrs Landingham or… I don't know… Abbey." Playing back what he had just said, Sam frowned. "That probably wasn't a great parallel to make while we're trying to decide… what we're trying to decide," he said after a few moments of contemplation.

Donna shrugged before turning over in Sam's arms. "I think that parallel was perfect for what we're trying to decide. Ever since I joined the campaign I've been Josh's assistant, his Mrs Landingham, to go with your simile, but I've also been his work-wife. All the trials and tribulations of marriage without the good things like companionship and stability and sex." She thought about that for a moment and then nodded. "Yeah, it's the perfect parallel, Sam. Josh thinks of me like an extension of his office, and while I know that in a lot of ways I am, that's not what I want my life to be. I want… the good things. And it took my a while, but I've finally figured out that I want to share the other parts of my life, the non-work parts, with someone who isn't Joshua Lyman." She smiled bitterly. "Took me long enough, huh?"

"I would have married Lisa because I wanted the stability and companionship of a marriage. Making eyes at your boss for a while is tame, compared to that," Sam offered. They both knew that it was more than that, that Donna hadn't just been 'making eyes' at Josh, and that she hadn't just wanted the stability and companionship of a marriage or whatever, but neither one wanted to put voice to that knowledge. Some things, they both knew, were best left unsaid.

* * *

_In the next chapter the flashbacks will end. I know they are a bit annoying but I wanted a change from writing in quasi-real time._

_Manic Penguin_


End file.
